CELEBRATING ASTRONOMY
IN IRELANDS
MIDWEST SINCE 1986 


 

Talk Astronomy on 
our Forum

 




Collimation Help:

Optical collimation is an important aspect of owning any type of reflecting/compound telescope. Collimating the scopes optics means that the mirrors are all optically alligned with each other and focuser. It's important that this is done correctly otherwise your scope wont perform properly and you will get smeared/unfocusable views. The process involves examining a bright star (in and out fo focus) through a telescope and then making adjustments. Under certain conditions you can also use a laser collimator instead. If you're uncertain about how to go about collimating your scope, you should have a look at these. Refractor telecopes generally are not user collimatable.
  • Youtube - Episode 1 of 6 of a series of videos on how to collimate your scope (Newtonian).
  • Sky & Telescope - Sky and Telescope collimation page (Newtonian).
  • SCT Collimation - Rod Mollise's advice on collimating a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope (SCT).

The manual supplied with your scope should have help regarding how to collimate your scope.