I first met Jim Fly at our local star party in 1998. His 8"
homemade
scope was set up only a few feet away from my scope. There was a
super nova in Ursa Major and many on the field were viewing it,
including Jim. He invited me over for a look and sure enough there
it was. The galaxy was easily held with dv and the super nova could
be seen as a pinpoint of light in the galactic haze. Jim suggested
viewing it in my 18" so off we went. After a couple of minutes
the
galaxy was located but the super nova was nowhere to be found! We
focused and looked but could not pull it into view. Jim looked at me
and said, "It must be a collimating issue." He was certainly
right.
Up to that point I exclusively used a laser to collimate the primary
AND secondary. I'd put the laser in the focuser and adjust the
secondary so the laser dot was centered on the primary and then
adjusted the primary to bring the laser dot back to it's exit
point
on
the laser collimator. I thought I was done but that night the super
nova showed me that "close" is just not good enough when it
comes to
having you scope operating properly.

The next day Jim showed me his Catseye collimating tool and how it
works. This includes center spotting the primary with a red
reflective triangle and using a white reflective "donut" on
the
Catseye Cheshire. The idea of the reflective tape is to allow a
better after dark visual on the center spot and cheshire when
artificial light is introduced. This allows easier touch up
collimation later in the evening after dark. After the lesson with
the Catseye Cheshire Jim showed me how well the red reflective
triangle shows up using the Tectron Autocollimator. When I looked
through the autocollimator I could easily see several reflections of
the red triangle and understood how to bring them into alignment.

Over the past few years there has been some criticism concerning the
red reflective triangle. Some believe the triangle could potentially
scatter starlight during observing and compromise contrast. For
those who hold this view Jim offers a non-reflective white triangle
to use as a center spot that will not scatter starlight. I've
found
that using non-reflective material for a center spot works very well
and does not compromise after dark collimating adjustments. Most
materials used today as a center spot are not reflective or in the
shape of a triangle. By far the most popular is the round notebook
paper reinforcement ring. Many use a square cut from black
electrical tape (the corners are important here). In my view it is
of no consequence what is used as a center spot whether it is
reflective or non-reflective. It can be square, round, a triangle or
any shape you want as long as it is in the center of the primary and
is sized appropriately. On my 18" scope I use a round yellow
smiley
face sticker I got from our local "Hello Kitty" store. They
have
lots of stickers there in a variety of shapes and sizes that will
work fine as a center spot. My smiley face works great with the
Catseye (both 1-1/2" and 2") and my Tectron tools as well.

Speaking of collimating tools, I've wondered for a while why no
one
made them for our 2" focusers. To collimate our scope we have to
pull out the reducer and fumble around in the 1-1/4" world.
Don't
misunderstand me, 1-1/4" eyepieces are fine but with our 2"
focusers
why not have 2" collimating tools? A couple of years ago I
experimented with making one. I took a small compact make-up mirror,
drilled a hole in the center and using a grinder carefully sized it
to two inches. I then disassembled a spare paracorr and placed the
mirror there. When I looked through the center hole I was surprised
to see the image had waves all over. It almost looked like those
funny mirrors at the circus that make you fat and skinny. Not being
optical grade glass it was simply unusable. Two month ago as Ken G.
and I were setting up our scopes for a night of observing he
said, "Hey Dave, look at this…" My eyes lit up as I saw in
Ken's
hands a 2" Autocollimator! It was just a beautiful sight and he
also
had a 2" Cheshire as well. I'd heard Jim Fly had a 2"
cheshire our
there but I was blind-sided by the 2" autocollimator. I
couldn't
wait to try it out and after using the cheshire I was ready of the
2"
autocollimator but oh no, it didn't fit! I worked and wiggled
and
pushed but try as I would, the 2" inch autocollimator would not
fit
in my focuser. It was a perfect fit in Ken's Feather Touch but
my
Feather Touch was just a little smaller and tighter and even if I had
a bigger hammer there was no way it would fit. Believing this to be
an anomaly I ordered the 2" autocollimator (Jim calls it "The
Infinity II) and when it arrived I took it to my focuser and this one
fit. My 1-1/4" Tectron autocollimator has a reflective surface
about
7/8" in diameter while the Infinity diameter is 1-3/8", a
full ½"
larger. This is immediately seen at the focuser as the reflections
of the center spot are acquired with ease and little searching. Jim
also uses what he calls "Optically-flat glass" so there's
no waves at
all like were found in my "homemade" Compact Collimator.

For comparison sake I place the 2" cheshire (called "The
Blackcat")
in the focuser of my 18" and collimated the primary best I could.
I
then replaced the Blackcat with the 1-1/4" Catseye cheshire. I
was
sure the introduction of the 1-1/4" reducer would result in some
minor variations but to my surprise there was no a perceivable
difference, both the Blackcat and the Catseye showed the smiley face
to be collimated in the center. The same held true for the Tectron
cheshire, as all three agreed. This was not the case with the
autocollimators as they are many times more sensitive to errors than
the Cheshire. With the reducer already in place I first collimated
the secondary with the 1-1/4" Tectron autocollimator. I was very
careful to bring all the smiley faces into convergence. Once
finished I put the 2" Infinity in the focuser only to find the
smiley
faces now scattered around the reflective surface of the larger
autocollimator. Once again I collimated the secondary to bring the
smiley faces into convergence and then removed the Infinity and
replaced the 1-1/4" reducer and Tectron autocollimator. Now the
smiley faces were gone completely. Finding them proved to be no easy
task either as I pushed and twisted the secondary around on the
hunt. Once they were all located and stacked I once again put in the
Infinity and again found the smiley faces scattered around the
surface of the 2" Infinity. Two things here became obvious, 1.)
Finding the primary center spot reflections were much easier with the
2" Infinity autocollimator than with the 1-1/4" Tectron
autocollimator and 2.) The introduction of the 1-1/4" reducer in
the
focuser to accommodate the smaller Tectron autocollimator produce a
slight offset position relative to the 2" Infinity's position
resulting in the disagreement between the two. Both collimated the
secondary relative to their positions in the focuser. The lesson
here when it comes to autocollimators (if there is one) is to use the
one that best matches with your favorite eyepieces. My favorite is
the TV 2" 17T4 but the one I reach for next is the Pentax
1-1/4"
14mm, go figure. Also, it should be mentioned that great care was
taken not to tighten the focuser set screw too much and at times this
screw was not used but the autocollimator was simply held in place
square in the focuser.

Both the Blackcat and the Infinity collimators are a welcomed
addition to my eyepiece case. I like not using the reducer to
collimate as most of my eyepieces have a 2" barrel. I also like
the
hands free approach with the artificial light source. With the
Blackcat/Infinity combo I use what's called the
"HubbeLite" (model
2002-3A) I got from Home Depot. It's small, has a red cover and
clips
on my secondary spider vanes. The 2" collimators also help if
you
have a scope with a long focal length, say like 125" inches! By
the
time the reflective white ring on the back of the Blackcat makes it
back to the focuser it has travel 250" inches/12"=20.8 feet.
Using
the Infinity helps when you try to stack the center spot reflections
from over 20 feet away.

Regards, Dave