- 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
- Package includes
- 1 x Advanced CT Laser Collimator
- 1 x Premium Carrying Case
- 1 x Fine Adjustment Stage (FAS-01)
- 1 x 2" Reflector Mirror (RM2)
- 1 x CR123, 3V lithium battery
Innovation brings Affortable and Portable Collimation into Reality
Since
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.
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.
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.
