kiwidoc66
27-03-2008, 06:14 PM
Hi
I've had the Skywatcher for a few months now and have found collimating the primary difficult - there are 3 sets of collimation screws - a countersunk (silver) adjustment screw and a grub (locking) screw (first pic). Collimation requires fiddling with both using phillips screwdriver and allen key...
To make it easier, I have replaced the countersunk screw with a machine screw and spring. The locking grub screw has been replaced with a star knob.
The spring pulls the primary against the star knob - makes adjusting collimation easy.
BTW the thread size for both adjustment and locking screw is M5, don't screw the machine screw in too deep or it will press on the mirror itself, knobs and springs from http://www.astronomy-shoppe.com (http://www.astronomy-shoppe.com/) but can probably be sourced locally cheaper.
Cheers
David
I've had the Skywatcher for a few months now and have found collimating the primary difficult - there are 3 sets of collimation screws - a countersunk (silver) adjustment screw and a grub (locking) screw (first pic). Collimation requires fiddling with both using phillips screwdriver and allen key...
To make it easier, I have replaced the countersunk screw with a machine screw and spring. The locking grub screw has been replaced with a star knob.
The spring pulls the primary against the star knob - makes adjusting collimation easy.
BTW the thread size for both adjustment and locking screw is M5, don't screw the machine screw in too deep or it will press on the mirror itself, knobs and springs from http://www.astronomy-shoppe.com (http://www.astronomy-shoppe.com/) but can probably be sourced locally cheaper.
Cheers
David