The Howie Glatter Laser Collimator

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Today, I received the Howie Glatter laser collimator I ordered in the US on the 10th of March.  I ordered the 635nm 2" Laser Collimator, with the square grid pattern and a TuBlug to be able to collimate using the barlowed laser technique as described by Nils Olof Carlson.

The 2" Howie Glatter Laser Collimator

The 635nm laser is better visible at day-time than the 650nm laser.  This makes it possible to start collimation already when it is not dark yet.  The Howie Glatter laser itself is very precisely aligned to 15 arc-seconds, so I can be sure that the collimation using this tool will be the best collimation that is possible.  The Howie Glatter laser collimator is also very sturdy.  Apparently you can drop the laser from a ladder and everything will still be perfectly aligned.  Good to know, but I'm not planning to test this in real life. 

The TuBlug

The TuBlug can be inserted into the focuser and the laser collimator can be inserted in the TuBlug.  Inside the TuBlug is a small barlow.  Thanks to this barlow, the reflection of the center ring of the primary mirror will be clearly visible in the TuBlug.  When the reflection is perfectly centered, the collimation is spot on.  I already used this technique before, but I used a real Barlow lens, covered with a white cardboard with a small hole in the middle.  I'm sure the precision will be much higher with the TuBlug.  The nice thing about the TuBlug is also that it is easy to see the reflection of the center ring of the mirror while turning the collimation bolts at the bottom of the telescope.  This makes it possible to collimate without the help of someone else.

The square grid holographic attachment.

The Howie Glatter laser collimator comes standard with a 1mm stop attachment.  I ordered an extra square grid attachment.  This square grid attachment can be used to check if the offset of the secondary mirror is correctly applied. 

The square grid produced by the square grid holographic attachment.

I'll do a thorough collimation of my 18" Obsession telescope the next days / week and document the procedure step by step on this blog. 


Location: 3370 Roosbeek, België

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