I am kind of perplexed by all the recent fuss over collimation.
I have owned both a SCT (with Bob's knobs) and a newtonian, and found collimation of both telescopes neither tedious nor difficult. Especially with the SCT, collimation was super simple - I am amazed that so many folks out there neglect to do this, or are scared to do it, believing it is somehow difficult.
It is true that -initial- colliation may take up to (gasp!) 10 minutes to perform, but once it has been done, all that is needed is periodic touch ups, which generally only take a couple of minutes at most.
Also, FWIW, most refractors I have viewed through which are supposed to be "permanently collimated" were out of collimation. I find that even with the adjustable lens cells, refractors are a bit more time consuming to collimate than reflectors.
I am just amazed that so many people would opt for a smaller aperture achromat in leiu of a larger newtonian just for the sake of avoiding collimation. It seems to me to hardly be a disadvantage to the newts - plus the advantages (no false color, larger aperture) of a similarly priced newtonian seem to far outweigh the "disadvantage" of having to collimate.
I am not trying to fuel the "refractor/reflector" debate - as there are certainly many other good reasons for choosing a small refractor (portability is one reason), but it seems to me that choosing a refractor simply to avoid collimation is a mistake.
-Jake
I have owned both a SCT (with Bob's knobs) and a newtonian, and found collimation of both telescopes neither tedious nor difficult. Especially with the SCT, collimation was super simple - I am amazed that so many folks out there neglect to do this, or are scared to do it, believing it is somehow difficult.
It is true that -initial- colliation may take up to (gasp!) 10 minutes to perform, but once it has been done, all that is needed is periodic touch ups, which generally only take a couple of minutes at most.
Also, FWIW, most refractors I have viewed through which are supposed to be "permanently collimated" were out of collimation. I find that even with the adjustable lens cells, refractors are a bit more time consuming to collimate than reflectors.
I am just amazed that so many people would opt for a smaller aperture achromat in leiu of a larger newtonian just for the sake of avoiding collimation. It seems to me to hardly be a disadvantage to the newts - plus the advantages (no false color, larger aperture) of a similarly priced newtonian seem to far outweigh the "disadvantage" of having to collimate.
I am not trying to fuel the "refractor/reflector" debate - as there are certainly many other good reasons for choosing a small refractor (portability is one reason), but it seems to me that choosing a refractor simply to avoid collimation is a mistake.
-Jake
