[Jason D (Jason)]

Originally Posted by adman

well - even a cursory glance down the focuser without the eyepiece shows that it was about as far from being collimated as you can get!

Adam, laser collimators are not meant to align the secondary mirror placement under the focuser. It is possible to perform the laser collimation steps correctly yet end up with a secondary mirror that looks WAY OFF under the focuser. Bear in mind that the laser uses very small part of the secondary mirror surface. The secondary mirror edge is not referenced or used by the laser collimator. The laser will give you the same results whether your secondary mirror is square-ish or triangle-ish.

I uploaded the attached animation recently in this website. Every frame in the animation will give a perfect laser collimation picture but only one looks good.

Jason