Ad Astra Observatory

Ah, maintenance.
Things you do on sunny days and cloudy nights.

I spent some time getting Trixie in collimation today.

It came together pretty well with the Catseye.

It’s clear that the collimation shifts as the rig changes its “down” vector. I am not sure how to keep this from happening, but I think it stays pretty close at this point. Worth rebuilding.

The secondary is oversized. When all is collimated, I can see part of the focuser board in the secondary.

I stuck a post-it triangle onto the primary. That helped the center spot and the Catseye worked a lot better.

I am looking forward to trying out Trixie on the stars again. I will be interested to see how much the collimation shifts; will it affect pointing? I am thinking probably not. It’s real close.