More Telescope Tomfoolery - Laser Baby, No Maybe

Ha! So ye want to collimate yer Newtonian telescope at night. Because ye have tripped over it and knocked it out of whack. Or ye fell toting it along and knocked it out of whack. Or a cow kicked it and knocked it out of whack. But the stygian darkness prevails and ye caint use yer Cheshire and yer sight tube fer the stygian darkness prevents ye from espyin through the tiny peephole. Or ye want to make yer adjustments at the rear of yer Newtonian and yet espy the results simulateously, and not have to duck walk back and forth until ye are sore and weary of the duck walk.

So yea verily this ye was me. But I, Crumby as many have noted, am a man of action, not merely a man of words and deeds, so action I took to rectify these wrongs done against me, Crumby Ovate. Did anybody help? Course not. Not Red, not Rayetta, not that dang worthless Ray, not Hope Remains, not that dern Lomo, who could have helped lots if he wasn't so high and mighty of the brow ridge, and I couldn't ever see Raymone to ask him.

So I built this gizmo depicted with a little help from the internet. It's my very own laser collimator. Let me describe it in detail from front to lala. The main part is all one tube of a pvc sink drain 1.25" OD. But here's something neat. Right before that first round of electric tape there's some little bumps in the pvc. And those bumps catch in the 1.25 adapter and it won't drop any further down into the focuser on account of those bumps. But just to make sure I put some electric tape behind those bumps. Next is a little window I cut out of the tube. Into the window I inserted a cutout cut from a 4" yellow plastic planter pot, one of the square ones we grow plants in. And I drilled a little 3/16" inch hole in the cutout flower pot right where the laser hit it. It took awhile to figure out all that. First I made a little construction paper model and marked the hole where the laser hit it. Then I used the paper one as a guide to make the yellow plastic one. Next is more electric tape to hold on the plastic window. Next are a bunch of screws to hold the laser and to adjust the laser. I used eight screws, four in front and four in back. I tapped the screw holes so the screws won't loosen up any time soon. Also, there's a ninth screw to turn the laser on and off with. Then in the very back you may see the terminal end of the laser.

Inside the collimator gizmo, the parts you can't see, is a 3/4" OD piece of electric conduit which fits inside the drain pipe, runs alomost the whole length of the drain pipe and gave me something nice and hard to screw into. Then finally, after I cut the window, I cut off a little ring of 1/2" pvc, cut a notch out of it to make a broken ring and shoved that up toward the laser inside the 3/4" electric conduit so the business end of the laser would snug up against that little ring and not fall out the bottom end of the collimator if I had to loosen up the screws for some reason. That ring may be redundant, but better safe than sorry, says I. Oh. I also electric taped the laser where the screws hit on it so the laser won't get chewed up by the screws, er actually stove bolts. Those are actually all stove bolts not screws.

The hardest part is getting the laser lined up to shoot straight. You have to fiddle with all those stove bolts until when you rotate the laser collimator gizmo the laser makes a dot on the wall across the room instead of describing a circle. That's what that ultra fancy apparatus the laser collimator is reclining on in the picture is for. You rotate the barrel to see if the laser dot describes a circle or makes a dot like you want it too. If it makes a dot and there's no circlin' yer collimator is properly stove up.

Here's a summary.

One 1.25" drainpipe -- 2 dollars
one laser -- 9 dollars
a big box of stovebolts on Clearance at Target that can be used for other stuff, mostly -- 2.08 dollars

I don't know what the rest of the stuff cost. It was all just laying around the CB or Dig Up.

However, getting all the stuff together, and figurin' out how it will work, takes awhile.

The neat thing is though, you can use this as a laser or as a barlowed laser and if you also have a Cheshire you can evaluate all the different collimation methods. And you don't have to rob a 7/11 to pay for it all. Now later we shall see what it does in the Newtonian. For after all, that is its role to be.
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Later Addendum

Ha! My laser collimator works perfect. Seats right where it's sposed to in the focuser. Stays center spotted as the focuser is racked all the way in and all the way out and is in precise accord with the results of the Cheshire and sight tube which I took great effort to get the rest of the telescopery to agree with just right the other night and did a star test to boot and had some very nice views of Saturn at 15x to boot also. Now these dern clouds need to ship out before I build something else. Yepper. But for the nonce I need to show everyone the laser collimator and see who shoots themselves in the eye with the laser. Then we can all have a Potential Safety Topic - Environmental Hazard - Lasers, meeting.
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An Even Later Addendum

In the sphere of telescopery, there is nothing so useful in light polluted skies as a good finder scope. I, Crumby just found that out. Man alive. Gary Russel 9x60 right angle finder. Superb!