We all know that collimating a telescope that has multiple curved mirrors is Black Magic. I’ve tried it and I can happily confirm I am… not a witch.
Here’s a 400mm f/20 Classic Cassegrain. The primary mirror is a parabola and the secondary is a hyperbola. And if you do the maths, the focal length really is 8000mm!
The last stage of manufacturing for this monster was collimation. To do this, Catalin (definitely a wizard) set it up on a bench so it was facing a flat mirror on the wall opposite. Using an artificial star and a beam splitter, he sent a beam of light from the eyepiece, bouncing off the secondary, back to the primary, out to the flat mirror, back to the primary, then the secondary and through the beam splitter to the eyepiece. This allowed him to align the telescope on the bench first, and then to adjust the mirrors.
The scope has now been crated up and shipped off to its new owner in Europe.
Most finderscopes and guidescopes are sufficiently different so you can’t use one for the other. ToupTek GS series scopes can do both, because they have removable sections to allow you to adjust the length of the tube. We reconfigured a scope to allow it to focus on infinity with two camera types and three eyepiece configurations.
ZWO SeeStar smart telescopes have become very popular. Their ability to be run in equatorial mode has improved their abilities considerably but putting them in EQ mode is difficult. We put together a small kit of parts you will need to do it without encountering problems.
Macrophotography with a WeMacro Rail provides the depth of focus normal macro lenses can’t achieve. But managing lighting is still a difficult process, especially in such a cramped area. This article shows the effect of a couple of gadgets that help you see while posing your subject and diffuse harsh lighting during the exposure run.