Ray,
First, thanks again for your reply.
The execution of the test was far from the perfection. I didn't have backing paper nor a tripod to hold the camera, so I used the cover of the telescope that is made by a translucent white cloth. To illuminate the tube I used the laser attached to the focuser.
" The physical alignment is not perfect, but its not too bad and I would think it should work OK for planetary as is if you collimate it with this setup. Mine was a lot worse than this when I started, but it still worked OK for planetary."
With this alignment the shape of the unfocused star was owesome bad, being totally fat on one end and very skinny on the other end, as if the scope was totally out of collimation, what doesn't agree with the light column image. Unfortunatelly I did not have time to do an image of the unfocused star because the weather closed and quickly start raining.
"the focuser is intruding into the beam a bit - was it wound right in or something?"
I am not sure about it, I am going to repeat the rest in a better situation and will be testing on this.
"I have no idea why there are two shadows from the spider nor what the dark bulge at about 1 o'clock from the focuser shadow is. If you use a single led source, do you still see the double shadow?"
I don't know either. As I said I will be redoing the test over the weekend.
On the other matters, basically your diagnosis match with the mine, however looks to me that the primary mirror is somehow out of center respect to its cradle. It looks to be displaced to the left. What do you think ? Don't you think this could be the primary reason of all the other issues ?
It is amazing how everything looks different when I check the collimation using a Cheshire.
But what really is puzzling me is how bad, bad, bad the result of the star test is.
Regards,
Fernando