Thread: Focus Help
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Old 27-01-2011, 10:32 PM
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floyd_2 (Dean)
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Cecil Hills (Sydney)
Posts: 557
Perhaps a good set of collimation tools would be an excellent addition to your kit Steve. It's always best to be sure that your collimation is spot on before each session.

A Bahtinov mask fits over the end of your scope, and causes a particular pattern of diffraction spikes to show up in the eyepiece. As you reach perfect focus (usually on a brighter star) the diffraction pattern becomes symmetrical. It's a very easy way of achieving perfect focus.

I think there's a person on IIS who makes the masks. Also, you can get Astrozap ones known as Focusing Caps which double as lense caps (which I use), or make your own here.

Dean
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