SVbony Laser Collimator First Look And How To Use

hello and welcome to my channel small upticks my name is jason now sv boney um has very kindly sent me their laser collimator to have a look at now before i go any further i just want to make it clear that i have no affiliate links whatsoever with a sv boney i don't work for sv bony uh sb bony don't pay me or or anything like that the agreement i've got with sv boney is they just simply send me some of their products i test them and i review them and i tell you where folks whether it's worth uh spending your honda and cash on um i have made sv boney perfectly aware that i will do honest reviews so with that being said let's uh take a closer look and how to use uh this laser collimator by svbony okay here we go this is the next generation laser collimator by sv bony and as you can see it comes uh nicely presented and uh oh that way we've dropped something already at least it's just the instructions this time uh and as you can see i'll hold it like that without any more uh accidents uh it comes actually presented in this uh little box here uh this is the collimator itself and what's also included is a two inch adapter and this is for you guys that have got uh two inch focuses so a really handy thing to have and of course the instructions that i've dropped on the floor um nice coloured instructions uh that come with that anyway we'll put those to one side for a minute now one thing i can say about this collimator is uh sorry if i just keep knocking the microphone i'll have to be wary of that um one thing that's uh about column h laser collimator if you've never used one of these before is they do need collimating occasionally um but i'm glad to say that this one was perfectly collimated straight out of the box so bonus points straight away there now i'm not going to go into how you can collimate uh your collimator laser collimator and on the process that's uh another video maybe i'll do a video on that uh but all i can say to you is straight out of the box this thing was uh in collimation actually spot on so brilliant for that now um sv boney on this particular collimator um i'll put some jargon up on the screen they claim to have it's got multiple lens system in here uh to to give it a a better sharper beam of light so whether that's i'll have to just take their word for that um like a lot of um collimators these days it does come with a variable brightness now up here on the top is how you switch it on uh by just and it's a nice really nice clicky into place like that you probably can hear that clicking into place and that gives you your various brightnesses of the beam and that is really important because when these things first come out um i'll just put that onto zero just switch it off i don't want to waste the battery yeah when these first come out there was just one bright light and when you're dark adapted that bright laser beam can be quite overwhelming and really um spoil your um your dark adaptation but with it having these i think it's seven or eight different levels of brightness and to be honest with you you'll only be using these round about the three and four mark any more than that and the the beam actually uh gets a little bit too bright but i'll get we'll get into how we use one of these uh in a minute we'll actually collimate this thing up this were actually in collimation it was spot on with this when i put it in which is a bit of a miracle so i have knocked this out of collimation a little bit so just to show you how you use one of these things um they're powered by a um i can't remember offhand i'll flash it on the screen uh just a single um 20 20 something battery they're really easily available um you can get them from anywhere online really um and and even probably even your local um pound shop or something like that i'll probably sell them um but the batteries do do last quite a while actually um but just remember to turn them off uh that's the only thing a little bit like finders i mean they're the laser finders the amount of times i'll leave those on and i don't know but it's surprising actually i left one on for about two days the other day the battery is still good so it just shows you they don't use that much power so the batteries do last quite a while and that's all i can really say about the actual collimator itself i mean the most important thing which it ticks the box is it was collimated so um i suppose the only thing to do now is uh let's stick this in the telescope and i'll show you how to collimate your telescope using a laser collimator right before we get started uh there's a few little obvious safety tips for one of these things remember we are using a laser and we're bouncing it off mirrors it's not generally a good combination especially when you're going to be sticking your head down and then peering down it so the first thing to do is obviously switch this thing on now i know you're probably saying well of course you don't do that but it's surprising how many people that switch these on and go like that and look to check it's on now i think this habit comes from flashlights or torches whatever however it's called them you know you switch your torch on and it's like yeah yeah it's on and you kind of look at it please don't do that you know it's not it's not a good idea to shine laser beams in your eyes so like i say what you want to do is put this on um put them on something like number four at first and always just check on your hand and as you can see if you can see that i'll probably turn it up just for the uh sake of the video uh so so you guys can see so turn it up to something like round about three or four now when you insert it into the focuser it's important that you have if you notice on our collimator there's a target you want that target facing the bottom of the scope okay the mirror if you like so you wouldn't put it in like that you would put it in like that you would put it in so this is actually facing uh the the bottom of the telescope um another little tip is i would rack all this is the way i do it i think the uh this is in focus i think you can get the i think it's in shot should i say rack your focuser all the way in okay um especially on these entry-level focuses or dare i say it plastic focuses and they tend to have a little bit of play in them and having it fully racked in it makes sure you know it ensures that the focuser is nice and firm there's not going to be very little movement in there um then you want to really lock these things off all right give it a good good nip up make sure it's well locked up nipped up now if you're regular to my channel you probably know that i'm not a big fan of using uh laser collimators and it's not the collimators itself it's these focuses uh that seems to be the issue but i'm not going to go into too much about that if you want to hear my rant about laser collimators i'll leave a link to the in the description about that video but for now this is how you want to start off now once you've got your laser inserted into the telescope don't go straight away sticking your head down here and having a look because if the uh if it is out of collimation sometimes the laser beam can be shooting straight back out and it will hit you straight in the eye the safest way to do it is just wave your hand in front of the uh of the telescope like that if you don't see a dot a red dot on your hand it's okay then to peer in the telescope and see what's going off so what i'll do now is i'll just bring the camera into a more uh place that you can see what i'm doing and we'll have a look of what's going on inside the telescope and i hope you can see this all right it was quite difficult to actually get focus on this one because it's focusing on two things he wants to focus on this but i've focus it on the mirror right let me just explain what you're looking at here uh this little hair area just here ignore that for the minute that's just a secondary mirror that's uh with the handle of the camera is just picking the secondary mirror up what we want to be concentrating on or what you want to be concentrating on when you are doing yours is this red dot here now the little circle just there that you can see is the center spot of my mirror or the donut as some people like to call it and if you look you can see that the dot is just slightly off-center now what the objective is is to get that dot bang in the center of your doughnut or your center circle and we do this by adjusting these three uh screws here now on my particular telescope you need one of these things uh sorry about the focus like i say i'm uh i'm focused for the bottom of the telescope but it's just an uh an allen key and you'll probably have one of those uh provided with your telescope um if not you may have got thumb screws i wish this has got thumb screws a lot more were a lot more practical especially when you're in the dark right then now when you're adjusting your secondary mirror um you don't need it's not necessary to loosen your center screw uh sometimes you may have to and that all depends on you'll know as soon as you start trying to alter these and if they just seem completely solid and it may feel like the tool's going to snap then uh give this just a tiny little bit of release uh this center screw um and and then you'll find that these are just more but usually you can start adjusting and doing some um you know collimating if you like without having to alter that center screw now um it's the same with the primary usually you only have to alter two screws now if you're altering and you'll find that it won't go if you say you're screwing in and it won't go any more up or down or wherever you want to go that means that um if you're using these two screws say you're screwing them in to alter the beam and it's not going where you need it to go and it may be getting really tight and it wants to go a little bit more that means that this one just needs loosening a little bit okay so you'd loosen that one off and then tighten them to back up and then that will put you right or vice versa okay if it's these this one and this one that you are tightening and they won't go any further then obviously this one then needs loosening a little tiny bit you'll be able to then re-tighten these a bit to do the adjustment and vice versa in the opposite way if you're loosening on these two to adjust and it won't go any further then that means this one needs tightening or whatever combination you're doing but generally it just you just have to alter two to do the actual collimation method now i'm cheating a little bit i know which screw uh or which adjustment needs altering uh you may not know this and it may just take a little bit of trial and error but uh the one thing i can say is it is tiny adjustments okay don't start you know twisting it round and round and round you'll you'll be you'll get yourself in a whole world of trouble doing it that way so just tiny adjustments now i'll try and do this one now i know it's on this one uh this one just needs a little bit of a tightening so i am breaking all all the rules actually here as well having my telescope slightly pointed up even though it may look um horizontal to the floor it's not and it wants to be totally horizontal to the floor the reason being if i was to drop this it's just going to stay where it is any tools if your telescope's obviously uh any more vertical then tools are gonna drop down it's gonna damage your mirror but um but like i say for filming purposes i have got this a little bit slightly high so hopefully i won't drop this allen key now hopefully you can see the donut remember it's this one just here you're looking at and i need to move it into the center and it's very important that we start with the second room error don't start doing your primary mirror first all right always start with your secondary mirror and get this one collimated first so i believe this one just needs a little bit of a titan so we'll make sure that's make sure also that if you're using a tool that's well engaged these little grommet screws are really easy to strip okay so just be wary of that okay and then if we just start tightening this you should start seeing that the beam we don't knock the camera too much is going into the center of the doughnut um i just have to swap glasses here i've got two after oh that's better i can see it now so a little bit more and that's looking good now it looks like it's just a little bit off to the left so that probably means just make sure that this is engaged properly that one of these just needs tightening a little bit let's just get right in that's it and then and sometimes what you'll find is just tightening them all up we'll get it where you need to be sorry if i'm blocking your view at the minute just move that out of the way that's it and probably this one needs just i think it's loosening a bit actually and that needs tightening okay that's near that that's spotting in the center now so that's the secondary mirror collimated so like i say just take your time it's trial and error um you know it's a little bit of practice and just make sure that all these are nicely locked up and nicely tied when you're finished with it and that's your second secondary collimated so now what we need to do is move on to the primary right then as you can see now the laser dot is coming down the tube it's bouncing back up to the secondary and up through the focuser and now coming on this little target area here now if you can see the little black spot in the center of that target that's where we need to get the laser beam now to disappear down that center hole and the way we do that is by adjusting our screws or adjustment screws at the back of the telescope uh these these three here or six should i say um now yours may be slightly different to this am i fully zoomed out oh that's better yours may be slightly different to this um like i say you you could have thumb screws uh in my case i've got these uh unfortunately horrible phillips screws now like the secondary mirror generally you only have to adjust two of these screws um but it's it's just a bit of trial and error um now i don't again if you you should be familiar with your collimation screws just just refer to your instructions of your telescope of what's what with these um you generally have a locking screw and an adjusting screw the locking screw tends to stick out further or protrude a lot more than the adjusting screw but what you will find sorry about the focus i don't know why it won't focus in on that but what you will find is that you'll know which is which because once you undo the locking screws they seem to just become really loose and you can like sort of just um use just your fingers to to to unscrew them as where the adjusting screws will have tension all the time they'll be they'll be under tension constantly so you'll know you've got the right ones now sometimes you can actually get this uh dot in the target area just by tightening up your locking screws it depends on how far out it is just have a look just start you know gently adjusting the screws and you'll see the target moving and you'll know which way to go so what i'll do is i'll zoom back in onto the um collimator itself and all i'm doing um it's hard to film both things at the same time uh so i'll just be adjusting uh either these two these two or these two okay it's different on each telescope so we'll just zoom back in on the target there it is and we'll have a focus beautiful and let's just start having a play like i say what we need to do is get that um dot in the uh disappear into the hole so which way do we need to go here probably that needs loosening in a bit oh there we go and boom as easy as that and as you can see now no lays it up dot is visible it's gone straight down the target which in theory that means this telescope is now in collimation would i recommend this well yeah i mean it works uh it's certainly better than any of the cheaper um collimators that are out there now you can pick these up for as little as 10 12 pounds i wouldn't recommend them i honestly wouldn't uh under what i've said before about collimators like i said i'll leave a link in the description about my rants on these things and when you do get the cheaper ones they are terribly collimated you'll be in a whole world of trouble with one of those things they kind of make the telescope worse not better so it's always good advice to just pay for a branded might make um you know companies they've got reputation they want to keep that reputation and like i say out of the box this has been a great little tool um it does its trick uh it works it collimates your telescope of course i will leave links of where you can upturn obtain one of these from in the description well that's about it for another one folks thank you so much for watching if you've watched this far i hope it's been of some use to you uh remember i don't have any affiliate links with sv boney whatsoever but uh i would recommend this actually it's it's uh out of out of this style of collimator it's one of the best i've used so with that said take good care of yourselves and i will see you on the next one bye for now [Music]

Channel: Small Optics

Views: 27,206

Keywords: astronomy, astronomy for beginners, telescope, how to collimater, laser collimator, stargazing, the stars, the night sky, the moon, the planets, skywatcher, SVbony

Id: rDcRoXjEPqs

Length: 20min 46sec (1246 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 21 2022