Having trouble Collimating Your dob. or reflecting Telescope

[anthony.tony]

http://www.andysshotglass.com/Collimating.html .This is a good tutorial on Collimating a Dob or reflector.It is a video tutorial so you can watch and listen to the instructions. Has anyone else got some info or tips on this subject .Reguard's Tony

[Glenhuon]

Thanks for the link. Wish I'd had a look at this when I first tried collimating my 6", makes it much easier to understand.

Bill

[programmer]

Most people seem to rave about this video but I have to say it didn't do it for me. What did it for me it was lots of reading of different sources, and what finally clicked it for me was the description in Astronomy Hacks (which I've been quoting from a lot lately and highly recommend it!). A tad terse, but it finally did the trick.

[erick]

I found Andy's video a good place to start, but also read lots of material.

One thing in the video - on two occasions he shows an image in which he says he is adjusting the Primary Mirror tilt with the collimating screws, but his fingers are on the smaller mirror lock screws (unless there is something very different about Orion OTAs). Also, I suggest that screwdriver is connected to your hand - use a big rubberband or something. In this way, you should not drop it onto the primary, even with OTA towards horizontal.

[programmer]

I have to add, getting a second person to adjust the primary mirror screws while I observed through my Cheshire saved me lots of time and frustration! The other person doesn't have to know anything about telescopes, just be good at following instructions :)

[DJVege]

I found, that after watching Andy's videos (on any topic) other people's written procedures and FAQ's started making more sense. I mainly had to get my mind around words like:

Polar axis, celestial sphere, meridian, declination, right ascension, azimuth, altitude...so that I could understand where exactly they wanted me to put / point the scope. :)