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Re: Help on use of Antaries lazer collminator

Started by Martin Willes, 03/27/2010 02:03PM
Posted 03/27/2010 02:03PM | Edited 03/27/2010 02:05PM Opening Post
A laser is not going to be very helpful with a Classic Cassegrain unless you use Howie Glatters Holographic collimator. A single beam laser will only allow you to align the secondary to the focuser. The Holographic laser produces a grid pattern across the hyperbolic secondary and reflects that pattern back onto the parabolic primary and then back to the secondary and beyond the front of the telescope. If you have a white wall in front of the cassegrain you can easier align the mirrors by lining up the reflected laser patterns and shadows of the mirrors. Howie does provide instructions for using the laser on different mirror systems such as a Newtonian. This laser is not very expensive and will save you a lot of time playing with the mirrors in the dark since you can align during the day. Final tweaking can be done with a star. Another option is a Takahashi collimation scope. I like this collimator most of all and use it to tweak the mirrors after the laser gets me close. I normally don't have to collimate on a star because the Tak collimation scope is that good. Best of luck to you because I know how these closely spaced mirrors can really be a pain in the rear. Martin

http://www.collimator.com/coltext.htm#cassegrain

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