Collimation board

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi,

Ok just collimated the Newtonian, now I tried for an hour or so with a laser and a star, what a nightmare, so I thought I know I'll put the Baader comma corrector on the EOS, flip live view and then do it, using my collimation board.

In the image below you can see a fibre optic near the centre of the image is perfectly colimated, I dod this by making an adjustment, moving the star off centre, re-setering, making another adjustment until the star was collimated, you will see to the right and lower down because the image is not in focus the centre is off set to the star in the centre of the image, this was true if I moved the image about so I think I have found a really cool way to collimate fast scopes, the collimation board only cost me £4 to make as well



IMG_0568 by chrissuddell, on Flickr

I then focused using live view on the moon and took this 1.250th second I think.


IMG_0579 by chrissuddell, on Flickr

[Rocket Pooch]

Ok, had a play before the clouds came over, it looks like the baader flattener is not sitting properly in the camera or the tube is bending which I do not think is the case I was using the EOS, I guess another possibility is the secondary being pinched as well.  Nearly there just need to debug the setup.


IMG_0592 by chrissuddell, on Flickr

[RobertM]

I see what you mean.  You have a few seagulls top right but other than that it looks very good, it's certainly not too far off.

That's an interesting way of collimation and should work a treat, after all it's just replacing real with artificial stars.  You'd have to keep the plane of the sheet at right angles to the scope optical axis but that shouldn't be too difficult.

Good thinking batman !

[MarkS]

Nice idea Chris - should make collimation pretty quick.

Collimation is so easy for you guys who don't have off-centre secondaries!

Mark

[Rocket Pooch]

I took the scope appart today, nothing fell out, and put it back together again to reset the primary, will give it another go tonight, maybe with the QSI?

Chris

[Rocket Pooch]

Ok, the problem looks like it was the T-Mount adaptor to the EOS, one side was lifted by .7mm.  Just done some testing using the board and its much better, lets hope I have not ballsed up the other side....