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Old 16-01-2014, 02:52 PM
glend (Glen)
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glend is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Lake Macquarie
Posts: 7,121
Whoops, you moved the secondary. So you will need to learn to collimate from the beginning. Shining a laser in there is going to get you nowhere until the secondary is aligned. Suggest you download Astrobaby's very good instruction set. If you have a cap for the focuser that might be made into a Cheshire device by putting a small hole in it to look through at the secondary. When you look down the focuser tube the secondary mirror (don't worry about the primary at this point) should be directly under the focuser tube and you should see it as a circle (not an ellipse or other shape). Then you can use the secondary adjustment screws to position it so that you can see all the primary mirror clips through the hole in the focuser cap - that gets you close. Then if you must use the laser that's when it can be used.

Read the instructions on collimation, do it, and do it again.

BTW its not uncommon for a laser to be off target on the centre spot, this is due to two factors: the laser device may not fit the focuser tube precisely and there is slop in the fit that allows the laser to lean over alittle or be pushed to the side by the focuser lock screw, and two the laser itself maybe out of collimation (hope you bought one that could be collimated and know how to do that - if not read the article on laser collimation in the Articles section)
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