Hi Paul
Thanks for sharing your experiences at the 'deep end' with this ne off the shelf scope.
Excuse my ignorance - is the primary easily collimatable for the GSO?
I can't say collimation is much like an SCT with an RC in my experience at all - however, I have had to deal with construction and assembly of the components from scratch with my RC, so I have a different perspective I guess.
I have found that the two most useful mechanical tools for RC collimation are the Takahashi collimation scope - which RCOS recommends for use with their centre spotted RC secondary mirror and a good 2" autocollimator like the Catseye one. Both of these can assist with aligning the secondary and roughly assessing the rear collar or focuser levelling - assuming it is adjustable.
Fine primary collimation follows with star tests for me too, as you are doing now. Then onto checking images for field flatness etc.
Fascinating stuff!
Cheers
Guy
