Post by David HoTech. HOTECH New Comprehansive Collimation Videos! Collimate your SCT with Confidence!
Video 1: http://youtu.be/wgDBktsX3fI Video 2: http://youtu.be/4BDwa0RVZw0
 CT Collimation Breakthrough Collimate Your Cassegrain Telescope
- Without using a star
- Indoor or outdoor - day or night
- Focus stays at final view setting
- Within focal distance from your telescope
- One-man operation
- Portable and simple to setup and use
- Works on CT, SCT, SN Mak, & RC
New developed co-alignment technique making the colllimation even easier at higher level of accuracy
- Review the Updated User's Manual (described in Step 5)
- Read recent article from Astronomy Technology Today Magazine
"This
is a very clever device. By using three perfectly aligned laser beams
it simulates the parallel rays coming from a distant star. The beams
then pass through the telescope twice to amplify any error in the entire
system making even small miscollimation errors readily seen and fixed.
David's done his homework on this one, coming up with a very ingenious
answer to daytime collimation of an SCT."
Craig Stark, Ph. D. Associate Professor and Founder of Stark Labs & PHD Guiding
 Innovation brings Affortable and Portable Collimation into RealitySince
the invention of the Cassegrain Telescope in 1672 by the French
sculptor Sieur Guillaume Cassegrain, the Cassegrain Telescope has
evolved into various derivative designs such as the more popular
Ritchey-Chrétien, Dall-Kirkham,
Schmidt-Cassegrain, and Maksutov-Cassegrain. The designs have gained
their popularity because of their compact and simple to produce design.
With different designs, star collimation is and has always been the only
effective method to collimate for Cassegrain telescope owners.
Now,
backyard astronomers have an alternative to achieve excellent
collimation conveniently using the Advanced CT Laser Collimator. The
Advanced CT Laser Collimator brings
the collimating star to your telescope within arm reaching distance.
With its short range capability, you can perform collimation indoors
- day or night - without being subjected to weather conditions. And best
of all, this new collimator utilizes a clear and simple-to-read, large
target display for the telescope alignment diagnostic. This large
target display is positioned within a short focal distance of the
telescope which allows you to collimate without guessing.
No Star Required to Collimate
In
order to achieve an accurate star collimation, normally the amateur
astronomer requires good seeing conditions with no cloud, no wind,
stable temperature, no light pollution, a well-aligned telescope
mount tracking system, telescope optical tube assemble (OTA) thermal
equilibrium, and a good visible magnitude star. The visual quality of the referencing star is greatly affected by the prescribed factors most of
 which
are all in Gods hand as you can see in the photo. Adjusting the
collimation is guessing game where you move between front and the back
of the telescope adjusting the corresponding alignment screw and holding
your breath peeping through a high magnification eyepiece referencing
the concentricity of the unstable defocused image. This can be an
incredibly frustrating experience. An
artificial star can never simulate a real star because it is impossible
to collimate with the telescope focus set at infinity. After artificial
star collimation, you will need to adjust your focus back to infinity
to view a real star by moving the primary mirror to a different
position. The distance the primary mirror has been adjusted can
accumulate mechanical tolerance errors. For some of the mass produced
SCTs, the “sticky baffle” on the primary mirror focusing mechanism may
also cause mirror-flop. If a mirror-flop has ocurred, it will affect the
alignment position which in turn will render the collimation useless.
Ideally, It is best to collimate your optics at the same viewing
focusing position without major optical displacements to correspond to
the final view setting. The Advanced CT Laser Collimator can accomplish
this task without all the possible accumulated errors. The
large target display on the Advanced CT Laser Collimator brings you a
clear visual cue of three projecting laser dots as the alignment
reference at a very comfortable visual distance providing an accurate
axial alignment error diagnostic. And during the entire collimation
process, no major focusing is needed, thus minimizing the possible
accumulated errors from the focusing adjustments. The referencing
adjustments are made by bringing the three clearly discernable projected
laser dots, projected on the target, into a concentric ring. No more
peeping through the eyepiece looking for a changing, ambiguous star
image. This alternative collimation method saves precious observing time
by collimating the telescope and preparing the viewing programs at dusk
or before dawn without the influences of the external environmental
conditions. Collimate Within Focal Distance From Your Telescope
   The
Advanced CT Laser Collimator does not require long focal distances to
achieve high-accuracy collimation. Utilizing the installed flat mirror
at the focal point (eyepiece location), the collimator lasers
double-passes both your primary and secondary mirrors and magnifies the
alignment errors to a higher accuracy level. In addition, it also cuts
the collimating distance in half achieving near-field alignment process.
The collimator is stationed within your telescope's focal length
directly in front of your telescope. Setting up for collimation, you
will be standing between the telescope and the collimator aiming both
the telescope and the collimator at each other. Then you will adjust the
secondary mirror knob to bring the returning lasers on the same track.
This is a very convenient one-man operation.At a Fraction of the Cost of Wavefront Interferometer Technology
The
state-of-the-art advanced laser optical alignment technology used in
the Advanced CT Laser Collimator achieves the same rough alignment
function of a costly large aperture interferometer commonly use in
high-energy labs at a fraction of its cost.
 The
Advanced CT Laser Collimator uses three collimated lasers, evenly
spaced apart, to sample large aperture optical elements in your
telescope. The three parallel laser beams completely simulate the light
path (flat-wavefront) from a distant star and pass through the entire
telescope’s optical elements and reflect back to its target for a
complete and accurate double-pass diagnostic reading of your telescope
optical alignment. This innovative collimation technique and technology
enables the amateur astronomer achieving far-field collimation as a
near-field process.
 Precision CNC Machined Panel and Components
This
beautifully designed instrument is precision machined from a solid
block of aero-space grade aluminum. It is then hardened and anodized to
keep the entire mounted laser system thermally stable allowing you to
achieve accurate collimation. The rigid, ultra thin profile, and
light-weight design makes the unit portable and simple to setup and use.
Collimates All CT, SCT, Makustov, & RC
The
Advanced CT Laser Collimator simulates a real distant star light path,
and as a result it can collimate most telescopes which primarily rely on
star collimation. The collimation technique can be implemented on any
size telescope. The current production model is designed to collimate
telescopes with a primary mirror greater than 7-1/5-inches and a
secondary mirror obstruction diameter less than 6-1/2-inches. For other
larger sized telescope, please email or call us for custom sizes.
    INTES MK-91 Celestron EdgeHD Takahashi FRC-300 Celestron CPC
"It
works, and it does not require a lot of space. Hell, it hardly
requires any space. It's nicely made ... and is less than some of us
have got used to payin' for one more eyepiece. I give it two thumbs
up..."
Read the recent review in Astronomy Technology Magazine
Rod Mollise, "Uncle Rod"
"We
have used the HOTECH Advanced CT Laser Collimator on our CDK Telescope
to set the initial primary to secondary collimation with good
result. HoTech's elegant design and high quality construction allows for
ease of setup and makes this an invaluable tool for collimating a
Cassegrain Telescope."
Allan Keller, PlaneWave Instruments
"I
heartily recommend this device to anyone, even seasoned "pros" as a way
to collimate without wasting you previous night hours and to collimate
at least as accurately as most star tests, and certainly a way to
collimate in areas and during conditions where a star test would be
impossible..." more
Bruce Prager, AstroSolutions LLC
Customer Testimonials on HoTech Professional Astronomy Products
SCA Laser Collimator
- Cloudy Nights Telescope Foum Reviews
- Review by Alex McConahay - President of RAS
- Review
- Review
- More User's Reviews
"We
used your 2-inch SCA collimator to help bring our 15-inch
Obsession Dobsonian telescope back into service. The telescope was
initially so far out of collimation that the laser beam reflected off of
the primary mirror didn't even reach the secondary mirror at all. That
was easily fixed and the magic of the SCA made final collimation
a breeze. The star images were excellent and the telescope was
enjoyed by a group of about 50 people under wonderful skies. I confess
that
I had never used a laser collimator before, but using the Hotech laser collimator was much easier than I had imagined. I now know that it is a fantastic tool that makes it easy to keep a telescope in tip top shape for observing." Scott Kardel - Caltech Astronomer, Palomar Observatory Public Affair
Advanced CT Laser Collimator for Cassegrain Telescope
Magazine Reviews
"This
is a very clever device. By using three perfectly aligned laser beams
it simulates the parallel rays coming from a distant star. The beams
then pass through the telescope twice to amplify any error in the entire
system making even small miscollimation errors readily seen and fixed.
David's done his homework on this one, coming up with a very ingenious
answer to daytime collimation of an SCT."
Craig Stark, Ph. D. Associate Professor and Founder of Stark Labs & PHD Guiding
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I
have a mewlon 250S permanently mounted in a dome. I have used Mewlons,
both the 250 and 300 for years and and found them superb scopes, but
sensitive to precise collimation. This is somewhat mitigated by their
ability to hold their collimation over long periods. Over the years, I
have struggled with collimation as my location in NJ is in an area where
the local mountains and upper air winds tend to produce a great deal of
turbulence and with the extremely high housing density, I am surrounded
by a massive light dome. This all makes the standard collimation
technique of using a star at high power, virtually impossible.
Therefore, I have tried almost every collimation device on the planet,
from Glatter Lasers to Catseye devices, normal lasers to holographic,
even the optical techniques recommended by Texas Nautical. With the
exception of TNR's technique, none of the laser devices had sufficient
accuracy to truly nail down the collimation of the Mewlon, and the TNR
technique requires distance that is difficult to obtain and requires
good weather.
At NEAF 2010, I had the chance to see the laser CT collimator, and with prior knowledge and use of double-pass collimation systems in my youth, this seemed ideal. I purchased it on the spot. The timing was perfect as recently I had obtained the new Mewlon 250 corrector and on installation found it to be everything Takahashi has claimed for it but it came with one issue. The collimation was now a bit more sensitive than before, making my issue worse. I followed the instructions for the collimator, but hit only a few snags. The manual referred to using the Telescopes fine adjustments, but there were none. From what I can tell, the adjustments were mount adjustments, not telescope. Trying to use the outside tags as targets was extremely frustrating, but on most mirrors, the edge is beveled. I made a template and marked 4 fine black lines using a fine sharpie on the beveled outer edge. These could be seen from the from of the Mewlon using a dim flashlight, while still being able to see the lasers. An additional mounting plate that allowed me to mount it a the proper height and provided a wider base to secure the base of the collimator to the fine adjust adapter HoTech supplies, and all was well to go. It should be noted that the fine adjust adapter is a very nice touch, as in my case, using a tripod was not possible, however the adapter can be mounted on almost anything, giving a great deal of flexibility. Ready to go, I quickly found out the first part of the learning curve. While it is clearly mentioned in the manual, I will repeat it here. The MOST important thing is to get the optical axis of the scope absolutely dead-on square with the collimator. Without that, you will never achieve good results. While this sound easy, and is probably much easier with a SCT with a Alt/Azimuth fork mount, on a German Equatorial, the axis's don't move up/down, left/right just like a tripod does. The axis's move in arcs, so getting the collimator square is a operation in which you should expect to spend quite some time, unless you are lucky and hit it off quickly. I did find that using the shadow of the diagonal helped greatly. By centering the circular shadow over the center of the collimators crosshair pattern, you will find you are already quite close (Of course, I didn't discover this right away). And getting from there to perfect, took time and patience. But any such collimation system (remember I had used this type years earlier) requires the optics to be square on, and Hotech deserves credit for coming up with a way to accomplish this in the field, not on a optical bench. Suffice it to say, the optical axis was now square and turning on the 3 main lasers showed 3 dots on the face of the collimator. Success! Or partial success, as the 3 dots were not all on the same line. This was my first indication of how sensitive the test is as the scope had been collimated earlier. It took about 15-20 minutes to get the dots as close to being on the same line as possible. I found the test so sensitive, that even the torque of turning a screw tight would shift the pattern and had to be compensated for. Once fully collimated, I screwed down my platform holding the Hotech, checking that all was still well. Now by just turning the scope back to the hotech, and a bit of tweaking, I'll be able to check collimation in no time. And I should mention that this entire experience was done, inside my dome, while it was pouring rain outside. Nice, very nice. So how did it work on the sky? In a word, perfect. Star collimation (as hard as it is for me) was as good as I have ever seen it, use of a laser collimator show the beam returning back dead on center, and TNR's optical technique indicated perfect alignment. Views were crisp across the field with excellent contrast and definition. This is a real breakthrough device. The first device I am aware of that really works for scopes whose primaries are fixed, works day or night, indoors or out and requires so little room, it can fit in a small 10ft dome with a relatively large scope and mount. Its accuracy is amazing, and the ability to simply watch a screen while you tweak screws until the pattern is correct, takes collimation from an art, to a simple maintenance exercise anyone can do. With the caveat of NOT skimping on getting it completely square, my only criticisms are that the connection of the fine adjuster to the collimator base is small and easily moved out of place if not careful and the manual could be better, with more useful diagrams for the tasks that have to be done, and perhaps an area that gives the user some ideas or possible tweaks to help solve certain difficulties he might run into. These are minor points, and ones that I expect will be dealt with as the product matures. The key is that I had NO real issues with the main hardware or its performance. I heartily recommend this device to anyone, even seasoned "pros" as a way to collimate without wasting you previous night hours and to collimate at least as accurately as most star tests, and certainly a way to collimate in areas and during conditions where a star test would be impossible. Bruce Prager, AstroSolutions LLC
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The Advanced CT Collimator is a very valuable tool for my C-11, and very accurate. Thank you.
Here are some observations. The circumference of the C-11 is too big for the supplied measuring tape, so I assembled the tension belt under the Losmandy plate where I could, near the rear of the scope, and measured off the 90's from a convenient spot to assemble the alignment tabs. I deliberately leveled the scope on its equatorial mount to perfect horizontal, and then proceeded to find coincidence of the center of the collimator with the center of the scope, to prepare for collimation. This was a difficult step, so say the least, because of the tripod mount configuration, and the use of the tripod in general. I was nevertheless able to tighten all of my collimation screws and achieve collimation as described in your manual. Star collimation was not too far off (1/16th turns, in my first go!). Congratulations. Ken Code, Amateur Astronomer, Director, Chief Technology Officer, BioLargo
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Many
thanks for the SCT collimator which I have now put to good use. I
really am very impressed with it indeed and it is a superb piece of kit
and I felt that I just had to write to you to express my appreciation.
I have a Meade LX 50 and although I knew that it was in pretty good collimation already, our weather here on the West Coast of Scotland is never that steady and I could never get an accurate enough star test to get the collimation 100% correct. However your collimator has done the trick and not only that, but it has had unexpected advantages as well. I have a Rolloff Roof Observatory and I have set up the collimator on a tripod head hanging down from the roof of the Observatory so that it does not move when I walk on the floor and this has made it completely stable. When I first set the collimator and the primary mirror parallel to each other, I noticed that the spot created by the in focus image of the three lasers did not quite hit the middle of the eyepiece mirror and this was clearly seen since you have kindly provided a stick-on concentric paper target to go over the end. It was not that far out but I traced it down to two things. Firstly, my FeatherTouch Crayford focusser is attached to the rear of the scope by three set screws and I found that by slightly slackening these off and re-tightening them, I could get the return spot to be bang in the middle of the paper target. Secondly, I found that my 2 inch diagonal moved about when I tightened up the two set screws on the focusser. I tracked this down to the fact that the two set screws were not evenly rounded off on the ends and now all is absolutely perfect. Strangely enough, it did not make that much difference to the collimation and it only needed a little tweak to bring it back to 100%. Your SCT collimator is not only excellent for actually performing a very accurate collimation but also it is very useful for diagnosing any other misalignments in the optical axis and I cannot see how this could possibly be done with a single laser. I am sure you will be getting more superb reviews soon!
Additional Notes:
A
couple of days ago, I also used your laser collimator to collimator my 2
inch mirror diagonal (Williams Optics). All I did was to collimate my
scope straight through without the diagonal, note where the spots
returned to on the face of the collimator and then insert the diagonal
and see by how much the pattern had shifted. It was then a fairly simple
matter to shim the mirror in the diagonal to bring the spots back to
exactly where they were when I collimated straight through. All it took
was a very thin piece of paper under one corner of the diagonal mirror.
I cannot see how I could have done this on my SCT with any other device apart from your laser collimator. It is also very interesting to see how much mirror shift affects collimation - in my case, by not much at all. In fact, your laser collimator is a fantastically useful instrument for diagnosing all sorts of problems with the alignment of SCTs, not only collimation. Nigel, Amateur Astronomer, Scotland Due to the high demand, item will be deliver one week after order placed! Thank you for your support! |
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