Our Friends at Hotech have
      finally come up with a Collimation Device to Accurately Collimate  CT
      Telescopes.

      That includes Maks, RC and SCT models made by various manufacturers.

     

Up until now, the only real way
      that we have been able to collimate an SCT has been with an actual Star
      test.

      not much fun when its -20 outside!

     

     

      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, Maksutov, & RC

     

      "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 of UCI and Founder of Stark Labs
      & PHD Guiding

     

      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-Chr￩tien,
      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 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 queue 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, ambigu 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 telescopes 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 amature
      astronomer to achieve 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

Price: $555.