Howie Glatter's laser collimator

[rwong]

Received my Howie Glatter's laser collimator last week. Have tried it and am very happy with it, though it is a little bit pricey.

It is a good alternative to any fussy IIS members. Pls see link for details

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

:)

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

They do look beautifully made indeed.

http://www.collimator.com/bigcol.htm

I would think they are to laser collimators what the Ethos is to EPs, sort of thing. With the shock test he describes you would never need to be suspicious of its alignment. Enjoy.

Cheers

[sejanus]

is this collimator the same sort of principle as the astrosystems one described here?

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=24955&highlight=astrosystems

[rwong]

The laser collimator I have is 2" 635mm, with holographic and self-Barlow attachments. The holographic attachment is particularly useful for very precise collimation.

I have not yet tried the Barlow attachment. I think I will ask one of my more experienced club members to test it for me.

According to the link,

quote
"
Normally, a telescope takes parallel light rays from a distant star and converges them to a point at the eyepiece focus. Barlowed laser collimation takes advantage of the fact that a telescope will work in reverse. Placing a colllimator into a barlow lens will cause the parallel rays of laser light to diverge, apparently from a point just behind the Barlow lens. The diverging rays projected from the laser-Barlow combination in the focuser are turned into a beam of all-parallel rays when they are reflected from the primary, except for where the center mark on the primary prevents the mirror from reflecting. This reflected beam, containing a superimposed shadow of the collimation target, is projected up to the secondary, and then reflected to the focusser."

unquote

When I took my scope to Bintel Melbourne for some modification to the mount, I noticed Roger used this laser collimator to collimate my scope. That's why I went ahead to get one.

Cheers
:)