This may be long, so please bear with me.

I recently purchased a DS-2114ATS and I am having trouble collimating it. I believe the optics may have been knocked out of whack during shipping because the "circles" inside of the drawtube were not concentric like the manual indicated.

I've followed the procedure outlined in the manual and I have yet to achieve concentric "circles". The steps I have taken goes as follows: adjust vanes so that the secondary mirror is centered within the drawtube, adjust secondary mirror holder so that the reflection of the primary mirror is centered in the secondary mirror, then adjust the primary mirror to center the reflection of my eye in the drawtube.

The problem seems to lie in adjusting the primary mirror. When I do so, the other circles begin to lose their concentricity. It is really annoying.

Any thoughts on what the problem could be?

Thanks in advance.

On a side note: in the process of doing this, I noticed two images in the reflections. They are white discs with a dark circle in the center and three dark lines running from the dark circle outward. Obviously, these discs are reflections of the secondary mirror and vanes juxtaposed against the incoming light. Anyway. I found that if I aligned these images on top of each other, I am able to focus in on things even though the "circles" are not concentric. Although this works, I believe it to be a temporary workaround since I must be losing some light due to the optics not being aligned correctly.

• This is hell in Earth ! - billgg - November 4, 2002 - 20:26 UTC