TS optics Photoline 130 Collimation check - Forums

Topic starter

Apr 20, 2022 · Edited: Apr 20, 2022

Hi, I ordered a TS optics Photoline 130 last month and it showed up today in a 4 foot tall package.
The scope was triple boxed. Well packaged. Everything looks good at the first look. As, new scopes always comes with clouds (Just kidding, my place is always cloudy) I wanted to see if I can quickly check the collimation. I purchased a cheap cheshire to check the collimation and this is what I see. (post referred)

The circles are close to concentric but not perfect. Is this something that looks good? I'd appreciate your feedbacks and thoughts.

PS: I have to wait for clearskies to see the actual shape of the stars. Visually or through photos. Thanks,Deepan

Marc

Apr 20, 2022

I don't think we can really judge from this; wait for a semi-clear night and de-focus on a bright star, that should be a bit more conclusive.

Björn Arnold

Perfect post

Apr 20, 2022

I recommend using an artificial star. For this scope, the required distance between scope and artificial star (rule of thumb) is 15xFL.

If an artificial star isn’t an option, you need to look at a real star *in focus*. If seeing allows you can judge the collimation by observing the diffraction pattern which should be an ideal Airy pattern.

Björn

Gernot Schreider

Apr 20, 2022

Hi Deepan,

this looks to me not suitably well collimated.
I never use a specific tool but I just target a bright star and defocus to see the circle pattern. I try to do it in two stages, 1st stage use up to 10 circles and try to collimate, when you have achieved this then focus more so that you have 3 circles and repeat. That should give you a good enough collimation.
I cannot recommend the use of an artifical star if you have a slow optics as it may not be bright enough.
Don't use the ocular but use a video feed of the view that you can see when turning the adjustment screws. It is essential to have visual feedback of your action.
Use Al's collimation aid to generate circles which overlay your image, so you can better judge if a round image is achieved.

There are software tools available that support collimation. I know that SharpCap Pro has such a feature but I haven't tried it yet. Metaguide is another great software that does a match with the theoretical Airy pattern but I have not tried that either.

CS
Gernot

Henrique Silva

Apr 20, 2022 · Edited: Apr 20, 2022

Hi Deepan,

I recently bought a refractor and made the star test.
i used the Capela star, and did the test in the center on the frame and then with the flatenner to also test the corners of the frame.

https://www.astrobin.com/fu8kbf/

Deepan Vishal

Topic starter

Apr 21, 2022 · Edited: Apr 21, 2022

Thanks everyone for your suggestion.

I checked the scope with Arcturus, tried to do a star test.
The results looked way better than what it appeared in the cheshire.
I can suspect the goodness of the cheshire.

And I got 30 minutes of time to image

Here's the first image taken with the scope -

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11GBBCfHe7EXp_jSeBIt9fNLfHx4irAA8?usp=sharing

Your thoughts and feedback?
I see tilt and guiding issues. Is there any aberrations that you guys see in this image?
I appreciate you feedback.

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