Green Laser

[NorthernLight]

Hi Guys,

for some time now I was whishing I had a laser that remained visible when pointed upwards but couldn´t get one as Victoria prohibts them.
Since I am in Auckland things have changed and I found a local maker of these gadgets who offers good prices - http://ledbulbs.co.nz/index.php/cPath/21

1. My questions now are: has anyone had any experience with the lasers of LED bulbs NZ regarding ability to hold collimation, reliabilty and so on?

2. Also, I am planning to align all my optics (on the mount) on a point projected in the sky by the laser by fixing the laser to the mount side: would that work?

I am looking forward to your replies.

Cheers

[Stu Ward]

I wonder if you ordered from NZ, would you get clobbered by customs ?

[mswhin63]

Yes you may get clobbered or at least something. I have been speaking to the licensing authorities and there rules on importation. Class 3 lasers cannot be imported in Australia without a license. I am going to sit the license course in the short term then get the license later.

Even for astro stuff still need a license for importation and manufacture, I believe some people have been able to get away with it on occasions.

[vespine]

To address the OP's questions.

I don't believe laser collimating is an issue. A "decent" laser will have a small collimating lens in front of the LED and a UV filter which are fixed in place, are non adjustable and should not ever go "out" of collimation.

I'm not quite sure what you mean in question 2. what kind of mound and scope are you talking about? Usually you'd treat the laser like a finder scope, you align it to the telescope, not align the telescope to it.

[NorthernLight]

Hi Vespine,

the idea is to tape the laser to the mount, parallel to the pol-axis. the laser projects a point in the sky about a far away. this point shall be used instead of a terrestrial object (like a radio tower) to centre the telescope and polfinder scope in order to achieve parallelity with the pol axis to prevent cone error and mount misalignments due to inacurate polfinderscope alignment.
If however, the end-point of the laser changes position due to airturbulances that make the laser more or less visible the whole operation would be rather 'pointless'.
Have you or anybody else tried that before?
Cheers

[gb_astro]

Hi Max.

I would of thought the errors in aligning the laser to the polar axis would
be a lot greater than any air turbulence position changes. ???

gb.

[Alberter]

hi, guy. last week i bought green laser pointer and tried to fix the green laser (http://www.gadgettown.com/Green-Laser-Pointers/) to my telecope, but failed, i think maybe need some gadgets to install?:question:

[ChrisM]

Hi Max, I have looked through a scope with a parallel green laser that was bright enough to "reach to the stars", however, the size of the "spot" was quite large and an no way resembled the point of a star. The beam divergence on this laser was measured to be 0.7 milliradians (c.f. 1 milliradian on a typical laser). This equates to 1 m/km - ie. a 5 m spot size at 5000 m.

I think that the best you could do would be to centre the scope on a bright star or planet, and then adjust the laser alignment until it visually hits the same target.

Chris

[NorthernLight]

Hi Chris,

well the thing with aligning on stars or planets is that they move and my tracking is only as accurate as my initial setup (being done with the finderscope). But thank you for your experience report that gives me an insight as to what the laser actually can.

Hi Jack,

Orion makes a laser pointer bracket that fits most Syntha scopes in place of the finder scope. See attached link: https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Images/Stock/8110X.jpg

Cheers
Max