Ad Astra Observatory

I bought an Orion laser collimator, but suspected that it was out of collimation, so I tried to adjust it, and got it *really* out of collimation, so I needed to realign it.

The suggested practice is to put the unit in a V-shaped channel, shine the spot on a wall, and roll the collimator. If it’s aligned, the spot won’t move. If it isn’t, it’ll trace a circle.

So I spent a bunch of time messing around with that concept, only to come up with a much easier solution:

I used my wife’s makeup mirror, stood the laser on it, and adjusted until the li’l red spot went back in the hole.

Nice!

Since I never really trusted the laser (and now I know, with good reason), I got really good with the Cheshire. I use that to confirm I got everything right.

Either way, my Newtonians are now all aligned to within an inch of their lives.