G’day Lee, thanks for your response!
I’m not going to profess I know enough, given that I haven’t nailed it yet
The degrees of freedom with these things is mind boggling...
Good call...I should check the laser. It’s a 2” and fits well into the focuser, but I also should check for any shift on securing the focus ring.
I typically rack the focuser out such that the reflections roughly match in size, I find it easier to be sure my collimation is good that way.
Also, not convinced about thermal equilibrium...I’ve been struggling to nail the collimation with somewhat wooly seeing this week, which doesn’t help when the Poisson point jumps about when the star is slightly defocused. But thermal disequilibrium might also look like wooly seeing
All things said, I’m encouraged by the images I’ve gotten with the maligned scope to make me want to get it that final step over the line to round stars. I’ll post an image shortly...