An attempt at collimating my SCT

[SPellinen]

In the continuing adventures of learning my Meade 2080 SCT, I decided the next step I needed to learn to do was how to collimate it. I've done no end of research on how to do this, and figured the best way was to do it in my basement utilizing a mirror and a homemade artificial star that I looked up how to make. So not super accurate, but hopefully enough to align things more than it was. The other night I went to take a look at Venus since I was up really early to bring my wife to the Duluth airport for a trip...but that is just an aside. When I went to bring Venus into focus, I noticed that the light moved in streaks before coalescing into a blob of light. Thus...the adventure of trying to finally align the mirrors.

Knowing that I wasn't going to do this outside, I looked up various resources to figure out how to do this inside. I found a way to use a mirror, and made my own star type light source (See below pictures). All said and done I had about 70 feet of space between my scope and the source when you figure in the light path across my basement. In reality I had the box right behind my head but in view of the mirror and scope.
I think the next investment I'll be making is into those Bob's Knobs...doing this with a 2mm allen wrench wasn't too difficult, but I can definitely see the ease of having a knob right on the secondary rather than fumbling with a tool.

In hind sight, I just realized I didn't realign my telrad at the same time, I just did the spotter scope.

Anyway, all that to say I think I have done a fairly decent job after looking at all the references I have checked with.

On an update note from a previous question post...I also found a dial for my focus, I think the larger diameter will help me slow down the focus and potentially bring things into clearer view.

Images are in no particular order, but I figured I would include them to show my process a bit. I had a weird aberration in the viewing...I think it was due to the old mirror I used, but it showed 3 images of light, so I focused on the middle one since it was the brightest. The triplicate showed up in the spotter scope too. The attempt at an image of the focus through the objective with my phone shows things to be a bit skewed...but with direct observation, everything looked right.

Hopefully one of these days the clouds will leave again, and I'll be able to go out and observe some more.

[FF2Rydia]

I'm going to make a guess as to the source of the triple images: the mirror being a standard mirror with the reflecting surface on the back side of the glass, rather than the front side like astronomical mirrors are.

[SPellinen]

I figured it had something to do with the mirror itself. I figured I'd be best off using the middle of the 3 as my target.