Make Your Own $2 Artificial Star For Telescope Collimation
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- Опубликовано: 16 фев 2019
- An Artificial Star is a point source of light. It is used to simulate a real star indoors, so you can do the collimation indoors, and not waste valuable observation time.
Commercial artificial stars cost $20 or more, and their main feature is a small plate that has precision holes of 50 micron up to 250 microns.
You can make your own artificial star, which is very close in function to the commercial ones.
You need a small flashlight, which costs $2 at the Dollar Store, a piece of kitchen aluminum foil, a fine sewing needle and a rubber band.
The full instructions on how to make your own can be found on my web site: baheyeldin.com/astronomy/make... 
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Much appreciated, almost spent $80 dollars for an artificial star device.Great Job
Glad this is proving useful to others.
Khalid, that was awesome. Thanks.
Oh man what a coincidence! I too have a C8 that needs collimated, although mine is due to me replacing the collimation screws with Bob's Knobs. The instruction manual that came with the knobs sure made it seem real easy... Almost _too_ easy...
WELL IT AIN'T EASY MR. BOB!
Well... after almost a week of tinkering, its still not collimated correctly the airy disk are not fully concentric. But following your video will make it a lot easier! Hopefully I can get it ready for the upcoming Jupiterl - Saturn conjunction, I was getting pretty nervous..
Thanks again for ur video! Wishing you nothing but the clearest skies my friend!! 😁🍻🔭🌙⭐
Thank you. Having just installed Bob’s knobs on my 8inch EdgeHD I need to recollinate and have spent 2 evenings freezing outside trying to get it perfect. I’ll be trying this instead now. Great video.
Thanks for the video.I made my first "artifical star" and using the fine adjustmet slewsteps as mentioned below to keep the star centered on the screen I managed to center the donut.. hoping for some clear sky time tonight :)
"....or check with your husband or your dad", just to keep with the modern times :) Thanks for the video, much appreciated. May I just add one more thing though, its important to keep the star in the middle of the non zoomed in view as the "donuts" can show distortion even if scope is perfectly collimated. So keep the zoom centred and instead move the goto scope in fine steps so star is centred in the lcd display.
Thanks alot! worked great for my dobsonian
People in other videos keep saying star and I didn't know what they meant, thanks for explaining and you also save me time and money with this trick, I'll be doing this as soon as my 8" sct gets home thank you 👍
Me too. I’ve also got an 8” SCT on order and will make this ahead of time. I’ll test it on my cheap 4.5” reflector in the meantime.
fantastic idea!!! thanks a lot!
Nicely done - thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you 🙏
Dude you made my day! Thank you so much!
I am happy it is useful to others.
@@khalid_ba thanks to your video just made collimation of my Mak 127 👍
great video! very usefull
Great idea to use the camera Live View.
Thanks for the great tip! I was looking at purchasing an artificial star and was dumbfounded that they cost between $80 and $110. I just successfully collimated my Celestron EdgeHD 8 using this trick, a tiny pin prick through some aluminum foil held in place over a flashlight with a rubber band. I just installed Bob's Knobs and it was my first time collimating, much easier to do this during the day inside my home rather than in the dark outside when I'd rather be using that time to look at the sky.
Glad it is helpful.
Do you recall approximately how far away the scope was from the star?
I've been testing outside in the cold with my star about 50 yards away. Definitely going to try inside next.
@@IamNotHerbert Inside it was maybe 35 feet.
Hi Khalid, that is a great idea! Thank you for your video. I wish I saw it before I bought my $100 artificial star. Oh well, better luck next time I guess. Anyway, thanks again for your video and the great idea of creating your artificial star for collimating your telescope.
Sincerely, Rich Williams
Astor, Florida 32102 USA!
I just use the flashlight on my iPhone placed perpendicular across the room. That is one bright star!
If you take a piece of aluminum foil, and make a pin hole in it, then put it over the flashlight, it will work much better, for a virtually no effort at all ...
That is a great hack for collimation. Thank you!!!
Thanks for this
Let me know it worked out when you try it.
thanks a lot for the tip, wondering if I make only one hole on the foil, taking into account that we need only one "star" to do the collimation, then doing the collimation process with two or three different magnifications. Thanks again Khalid and for sure I will make my own.
Don't know how that will work out. If you test it, please report back.
shokran
Instead of moving each star toward the center of the FOV on the LCD screen, isn't it better to move the actual telescope to center on each star? I have a 180 Mak, and my problem is finding an area long enough to set the flashlight far enough away. Works great with my C5, though!
The idea of moving the star from the edge of the FOV to the center, is that there is less optical distortion (coma, ...) in the center than the edges. So if you try to collimate with the star on the edge, you will not know if it is miscollimation, or the inherent distrotions.
I don't have a Maksutov, so I don't know what to advise for it.
Good, inexpensive idea! One question: Should one use a low, medium or high powered eyepiece if using one instead of a camera?
Hmm. I never tried an eyepiece for this. Of course, the higher the power, the narrower the field of view. So maybe start with a low power one, then switch to a high power afterwards.
You can put a barlow between camera/scope to increase magnification BTW.
Using an eyepiece, a high power is best (10mm or higher) as this will magnify the star to show the concentric rings much easier.
@@khalid_ba I finally did this and it worked perfectly using a lower powered eyepiece. I did it with a 27mm EP. I think the distance is the issue. I had the scope and light source seperated by about 30ft (10m) and I could not use a high powered one. The more the distance, the easier it is with higher powered eyepieces. Either way it worked and I got the scope collimated. Thanks for the wonderful idea!
@@gabem6863 Yes, you need some distance. I first tried with a mirror at the far end of the hallway, and both the scope and the artificial star at the other end. However, it was impossible to align the mirror perfectly so I see the star.
But using a DSLR, and the 10X zoom in liveview, it was easy to do with the star at the other end of the house (maybe 12 meters?)
Glad it was helpful.
I have an 8" skywatcher quattro newtonian. Is this method used to adjust the secondary mirror or the primary ?? I would assume it would be for adjusting the secondary and then it's easy to fine tune the primary mirror. Any thoughts ?? Thanks for the video.
It is for any type of scope. And it is only half of the tools. It just allows you to do this in daylight, and not have to wait till dark for real stars. For a Newtonian, you need a Cheshire collimator, in addition to this.
@Monty Take a look at this garyseronik.com/no-tools-telescope-collimation
@Khalid Thank you so much for this! I've been meaning to find a better way to star collimate without being affected by seeing conditions or needing polaris. How far did you have to put this gadget from the telescope for it to be an effective pinpoint star?
@@easswarb1 I had to put them apart as far in the house as I can, with the scope at one end, and the artificial star at the other end. Maybe 10 meters, but the more the better.
@@khalid_ba Great, I'll give it a shot soon!
Thank you for this. I have a Meade 10" and (perfect) collimation seems is paramount for decent pictures. I know you posted this 3 years ago but if I may ask, can we just point a very dim laser at the telescope or maybe bounce it off a mirror? I am going to try your method tonight with the aluminium foil and different holes for different brightness of stars (it is raining here in El Paso) and hopefully be ready for the next clear night. Clear Skies to you, sir... 🙂
I don't think a laser would work, since the beam would not be thin enough. Green pointer laser, and red cat lasers both have thick beams. Also, I don't know if they would harm the camera sensor, let alone your eyes. Better stick to normal light, and a pinhole of some sort.
@@khalid_ba Thank for your quick reply. I am not new to amateur astronomy and I have worked very hard a number of times on "perfect" collimation and it is a pain trying this in the (cold) New Mexico desert on a real star, as I am sure you know, always having the star move out of the field of view when tweaking the collimation screws. I can't say I get bad pictures but detail and focus of something like Jupiter just isn't good enough. I have had this telescope for probably 10 years and used it many times and am generally satisfied with moon images but the planets just aren't good enough - I am going to try "one more time..." and hopefully get the results I want. I am seriously considering buying a nice refractor telescope. Hopefully, I won't need to. Thanks again.
@@ElPasoTubeAmps I am not a planetary imaging expert, but friends who do it have to use video and lucky imaging to get good images. Otherwise seeing is a constant problem.
This looked so easy and simple, so should've known it wouldn't work for me. I have the Edge HD 9.25 and I couldn't make it work in the basement. The farthest I could set the flashlight was around 35 feet and it was way too close for my scope.
It worked for my C8 which has a focal length of 2000 mm, and I was able to focus it from one end of the house to the other end (around 8.7 meters).
I initially tried to use a mirror, and shine the flash light to it to double the length of light path, but adjusting the angle of the mirror was hard. If you attach the mirror to a something that can hold an angle and change that angle easily, you will have better luck. For example, a camera tripod with some velcro or duct tape.
The only issue I see with this is you need high magnification to do a proper collimation and a camera hookup is not going to give you that nor will you probably be able to reach focus indoors on an artificial star with a high power eyepiece. Even hooking a 2.5x Powermate into your DSLR won't give you near enough magnification and again you probably won't be able to reach focus indoors if you did. I too struggle with collimation under the night sky because I don't have a sturdy enough tracking mount and Polaris really isn't bright enough to use for collimation.
The issues you mention are hypothetical and moot.
The Canon DSLR I used has 5X and 10X magnification, and that provides the necessary power to see the doughnut shape clearly.
@@khalid_ba well I appreciate the video. I am about to buy another sct after years of not owning one and will try this method again and report how it corresponds to an actual star test outdoors.
does this work on any telescope? or just mak/cas?
The principle is the same, since it is a purely optical method. However, the specifics may vary (e.g. what screws/knobs to use, and so on).
All you're doing is centering the secondary shadow. This is not a star test unless you use an eyepiece equal to the focal ratio of the telescope and get eccentric rings around the star with the high magnification of the eyepiece.
Can i use this methode to collimate a canon zoom lens !?
Camera lenses don't usually have screws or knobs that are designed for the use of the photographer.
Also, an artificial star may not be enough for a lens that does not have a secondary mirror.
Search Google for "collimating camera lens" and see what you find.
how far away were you from the flash light?
?
As far as you can.
For example, if you are in an apartment, try to place the flashlight in one end, and the scooe in the other.
In my case, it was about 7 or 8 meters.
2:07 "This is not going to show correctly here." Set up your equipment properly BEFORE you turn on the camera. Is your time so valuable? Mine is, too.
If your time is so valuable, why are you wasting it watching useless RUclips videos, and criticizing others who choose to share their experiences so it may help others?
Seriously pathetic unnecessary comment!
What a jerk.
If it was already set up perfectly, it defeats the purpose of teaching the viewer how to correct the misalignment.