Expectations for good collimation?

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rocdoc
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Expectations for good collimation?

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Post by rocdoc »


Hi everyone,
I’m enjoying the very solid-feeling 10x50 Ultra bino from Oberwerk. Last night, while setting them on my monopod for a session, I did a visual test of their collimation. As read in Stephen Tonkin’s book, I defocused one side and kept the other sharp. The focused star is right on the edge of the defocused circle. So, close, but nowhere near the center of the defocused image. Is this “close enough”? Or should I expect more precise alignment, especially from a vendor whose selling points include “we ship perfectly collimated products”? Maybe this is “perfect collimation” for amateur products, in which case I’ll stop worrying and enjoy.
Important to note that I’ve used them very little to date, but in this time I haven’t noticed anything untoward in this respect in normal use.
Thanks
Properly collimated cornea-lens-vitreous optical apparatus, projecting on retinal sensor slightly limited by deuteranomaly, feeding through stock optic nerves into functional primary cortex, processed through frequently misfiring and buggy integrative cortex.
Other instruments: Skyline 8" Dobsonian, on a dob pod; Celestron Omni XLT 120 w GSO crayford focuser and Meade 5000 diagonal on Stellarvue M2C mount and Meade LX70 tripod; Oberwerk Binos: 25x100 Deluxe IF on Benro tripod with Oberwerk 5000 head or Farpoint parallelogram; 10x50 Ultra, usually on 3 Legged Thing Punks Trent monopod with Dolica trigger grip head; 8x42 Sport ED hand held. Main EPs: ES 82º 24mm and 11mm, Celestron Luminos 19mm and 10mm, Meade UWA 14mm, Meade HD-60 6.5mm. Filters: UHC, 13%, blue. Finders: RACI, Telrad, RDF, reticle.
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John Baars Netherlands
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Re: Expectations for good collimation?

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Post by John Baars »


You should not worry too much. It is quite within range what is considered normal. Although they are not aligned like one would expect.
Our eyes are used to look "crosseyed" ( reading for instance, is done crosseyed) As a result we don't even notice when two objects are not exactly horizontally aligned. We do notice vertically misalignment. Our eyes are not made to handle vertical misalignment.

Do you see two stars as well without bino's? In that case it has to do with the muscles of the eye itself.

As a result of older age I am so "lucky" to have that. It means wearing glasses when driving a car at night. When I am tired and have seen a computerscreen all day( reading mode) , I see one Wega for instance, and when I relax, I see two. I collimated my old binoculars to that position. Quite usefull, for no one wants to have a peek through my bino's :-))
Refractors in frequency of use : *SW Evostar 120ED F/7.5 (all round ), * Vixen 102ED F/9 (vintage), both on Vixen GPDX.
GrabnGo on Alt/AZ : *SW Startravel 102 F/5 refractor( widefield, Sun, push-to), *OMC140 Maksutov F/14.3 ( planets).
Most used Eyepieces: *Panoptic 24, *Morpheus 14, *Leica ASPH zoom, *Zeiss barlow, *Pentax XO5.
Commonly used bino's : *Jena 10X50 , * Canon 10X30 IS, *Swarovski Habicht 7X42, * Celestron 15X70, *Kasai 2.3X40
Rijswijk Public Observatory: * Astro-Physics Starfire 130 f/8, * 6 inch Newton, * C9.25, * Meade 14 inch LX600 ACF, *Lunt.
Amateur astronomer since 1970.
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pakarinen United States of America
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Re: Expectations for good collimation?

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Post by pakarinen »


I was just reading about collimation somewhere. Takeaways are:

Vertical alignment is more important than horizontal
Horizontal alignment might be displaced slightly to the left of center on left tube and slightly right of center on the right tube with no noticeable effect.
If the right image is to the left of the left image and vice versa (images crossed) you're going to get a whopper of a headache.

FWIW.
=============================================================================
I drink tea, I read books, I look at stars when I'm not cursing clouds. It's what I do.
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AT50, AT72EDII, ST80, ST102; Scopetech Zero, AZ-GTi, AZ Pronto; Innorel RT90C, Oberwerk 5000; Orion Giantview 15x70s, Vortex 8x42s, Navy surplus 7x50s, Nikon 10x50s
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