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Doc
First off I can make a couple of comments. Collimation is one of those topics that newcomers to our hobby get stressed out about. If you look at some info in the web, you would get the impression that not having perfect collimation will cause disruption of the space-time continuum. My advice to beginners is "get it as close as you can, without spending more than a few minutes or at the most an hour, then forget it and learn to use your scope". Collimation really is a case of diminishing returns, there are better things to spend your time on. While I understand you want to do live viewing, a few hours at the eyepiece will serve well in this situation. Just pointing the scope at the sky, look in the eyepiece and play with focus so you understand how focus works on your scope will pay dividends. As an added benefit, if the stars are reasonably sharp visually, you can put collimation out of your mind until you need to. When I started using an SCT, I quickly found out that "the moon is your friend". You can go out on a nice moonlit night and easily line up and work out focus and how the settings on your software and camera work.
Malcolm
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