I can vouch that perfect collimation isn't critical. my 10" GSO dob arrived today from Andrews, I bought a Cheshire with it just to be on the safe side. (Havnt used it yet)
After putting it all together and everything, took it outside for a test run, even travelling from Sydney to the gold coast stars are pinpoint (even thou I only used the 40/20/15mm eps I had alread), but the views were 100 times better then my old 4.5" reflector.
I did defocus to see how bad it was out of collimation and by the website it looks like it's only tube currents .. even after a few hours. defocused, stars looked more like this \\|// ... with the star under the | ...(if that makes sense) . in focus the stars look pinpoint and the brighter ones look like the ones in photos, with the + radiating from them, with a circular halo around them. (is that normal?)
or is that pinched optics? the closest thing on that website which looks like what I see is tube turbulance...
or is it astigmatism?! only bright stars show the + but its not a blob, its more like stars in pictures , but defocused it doesn't look like that (from the website).
(now I'm worried)
thanks, for any advice, and sorry for hijacking this thread..
matt
i should add it was B cen/Agena I was testing on. all the other stars, even in the jewel box look perfect ...like in the books, with 50 or so stars. maybe I shouldn't worry
