Refractor collimation

[LewisM]

Is it possible to do refractor collimation at home without great expense, and if so, what tools are required?

Or I should just send it to Roger in Sydney :)

Seems my DED108SS is just a gnat's gonad off in collimation, but JUST enough to see in an image zoomed in

[Geoff45]

It depends on the design and adjustment capabilities of the lens cell and how many elements it has. I think a televue with two widely separeated doublets would be difficult. An achromat with push-pull screws to tilt the whole assembly would be a walk in the park.
Tools include cheshire eyepiece, Howie Glatter's parallizer and laser collimator http://www.collimator.com/
Geoff

[allan gould]

Don't touch it.
Send it to Roger in Sydney. If you have to ask the question then the intricacies are beyond mere mortals
But if you feel courageous it might make a great post :D :D

[Profiler]

Ditto Lewis

Quad lens designs are best tinkered with people who have ample experience with their collimination.

[Exfso]

I sent my TAK TOA130 to a company in Sydney suggested by the Australian Tak Distributor, they totally trashed it to the point it had to go back to Japan for a complete re-build. One very expensive exercise. This company was supposed to be the ants pants on collimating refractors, as it turned out, they were total shonks and had absolutely no idea of what they were doing. The Tak people could not believe what damage these clowns did. Needless to say I believe horses for courses if possible send the scope to the manufacturer if it is of the expensive variety. I certainly learned a very expensive lesson...

[2stroke]

Lol have and would only ever do this myself with a st80, get the manufacturer to do it. The st80 was in parts so i had no choice and it is only for guiding, i just used a piece of paper cut into a circle with tabs and center marked along with a laser col. It now works some what but would never use it for anything apart from guiding as the image is ruff as guts. Anyhow contact vixen on it.

[Profiler]

You wouldn't be able to provide a clue as to the identity of said "shonks" so that the rest of us potentially unwary punters with telescopes may proceed with a little more caution should the issue of a repair arise in our futures?

[brian nordstrom]

:) +1 for not touching it Lewis , to get a doublet perfect is a slow job , a Quad would be so easy to bugger up , send it to someone who has the expertise and gear to do it properly , if it really needs it at all ?.
Brian.

[casstony]

Collimating a refractor where the push/pull screws move the entire objective cell is easy. Re-centering a doublet shouldn't be too difficult. Anything more than that gets a lot more complex, especially with more exotic designs like the DED or some of the Tak triplets where one element is moved independently from the other two (6 sets of collimation screws).

[Exfso]

Any one wanting to know who that mob of shonks are, can PM me and I will supply them with the identity. Obviously can't do it live here for obvious reasons.;)

[LewisM]

Having discussed this with Peter previously, I can assure everyone the shonk is NOT Roger Davis (http://www.rogersopticsrestoration.com.au/index.html)

I am thinking to leave it alone for now. Most of the issues seem to have laid in the CCD unit I was using.