howiemachCollimation: Laser Devices, by Howie Glatter

Abstract:

When looking at stars through your telescope, do they appear large and distorted instead of perfect points of light? While sometimes this is the atmosphere, quite often it is because one or more optical components in your scope are mis-aligned! This can also waste light coming from your primary, resulting in dimmer views of objects.

This class will show you how to collimate your telescope using a laser device.

You’ll learn the basic principles of collimation using visual guidance from a laser device that you attach to your telescope focuser in place of an eyepiece.

While collimators can be used for all types of telescopes, we will demonstrate for Newtonian and Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes.   We’ll show you the different techniques for each of these.

We’ll also cover important issues, including

  • Problems with collimator accuracy
  • Barlowed-Laser Primary Adjustment
  • Collimator alignment within the eyepiece holder

 

Prerequisites:

No prior experience required.  

However it will be useful if you first take one of the companion classes,  Collimation: Newtonian/Dobsonian or Collimation: Schmidt-Cassegrain

 

Daytime session (1.5 hours)

Tuesday May 12, 2015  3:30-5:00 PM