Astromania Alignment 1.25" Next Generation Laser Collimator for Newtonian Telescopes - with This Laser You can collimate Your Newtonian Telescope in just a Few Minutes!

I wasn’t expecting much given the low price, but this Astromania Laser Collimator really impressed me. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do and gets the job done without costing a fortune.What I Liked:Super Easy to Use: Setting it up was a breeze. Some reviewers mentioned issues with the battery, but I had no problems. It takes a CR2032 battery, and I had it installed in seconds—super simple.Does the Job Well: After using this collimator, my reflector telescope was perfectly aligned. The views were noticeably sharper, and it saved me a lot of time getting everything lined up.Laser Dot with Adjustable Brightness: The laser dot was clear and easy to see, and I really appreciated the adjustable brightness settings. They made it easy to use in different lighting conditions without any issues.Sturdy Build: I was surprised by how solid it feels. It’s not flimsy like I expected at this price, and it’s held up well after several uses.Final Thoughts: For the price, this collimator is a fantastic deal. It works great, was easy to set up, and helped me get my telescope perfectly aligned. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly tool for your Newtonian, I highly recommend this one.

Like the title says, mine was perfectly calibrated out of the box. That said, you should always be prepared to verify and adjust a tool like this when it arrives.Build quality is excellent. Far better than I expected at this price.Once I verified the calibration, I popped it in my telescope and saw just how awful my collimation was using the cap that came with my telescope. Getting everything properly aligned was a piece of cake.

The laser I got is just barely off collimation, but it’s within the margin of error so I still use it for my Orion xt8 and it still aligns the mirrors very well. Definitely worth the price and makes it really easy to collimate.

Needed to check the mirror alignment on my dobsonian. Found out that the alignment was off, which I had suspected due to blurry images. After checking the device itself to make sure it was collimated, which it was right out of the box, I inserted it into the focuser and started the collimation process. Very easy tool to use. As others mentioned, this does not come with a battery and the instructions don’t tell you which one to use. I read from others that it takes a CR2032 so that is what I used. Can’t beat the price for this useful tool.

Very easy to use and achieved great results.

So watching the video I thought I understood well what to expect. But I was surprised with what I experienced. Even so once I realized what was going on I was able to use this tool to align both my mirrors in my reflector telescope. What surprised me most is how accurate it was for something I started out stumbling around with.Let me just say that when I saw the video here in Amazon there was a nice little red dot that I assumed needed to reflect right back into the bullseye on the collimator tool. Instead what I got was a red light projection of a target and it's rings. I aligned the projected target on top of the printed target you can see on the product images here and that's it. It got my mirror aligned so good I was able to watch Jupiter with extreme clarity and no blurriness.Let me get detailed. I bought this tool because I was having a hard time eyeballing my mirrors in an old reflector telescope I have. Both the primary and secondary needed alignment and I was using some old tricks to try and get it done. But after a whole night of trying to get a clear image I failed and packed everything. I searched for tools to help and stumbled across a few but this one had some good reviews and a nice red laser dot to help, which would mean I could avoid relying on my eyes. When it arrived I setup the collimator tool and began taking apart my telescope mirrors. They were so off I wasn't losing anything by disassembling them. I cleaned them of any dust and began marking the center of the primary mirror. Didn't use any special tools and it was partially eyeballed. Once I had a rough middle point marked I placed both mirrors back into the telescope tube/body and used this collimator to emit the red dot. I looked down the telescope to align the secondary mirror to reflect the dot to the middle of the primary mirror. I then had to remove the primary mirror to clean the marker I made in the middle. I placed it back into position and began adjusting the primary mirror to get the nice little red dot on the bullseye of the printed target in the collimator tool. But to my surprise I wasn't seeing a red dot. Instead I had a projected red light of the target overlaying the printed target image in the collimator. As I messed around with it thinking I was getting an error, I noticed the rings of the targets can line up and match each other. That's when I realized my Collimator is not producing a nice small red dot, but instead it is emitting a light projection of a target with rings matching the one printed inside it. I made sure that I aligned the primary mirror to reflect the projected target over the printed one, matching the rings. Once I was done with that I took the telescope outside to check the accuracy. Honestly I was expecting to have to make a few touch-ups when viewing Jupiter. What I got was a perfectly sharp and focused image of Jupiter. I am super happy with the results from simply using this tool to help align my old telescope. If you use it right, it will work perfectly. I highly recommend this tool for anyone needing to align one or more mirrors in your telescope.

When I received this I quickly realized that it didn't come with a battery CR2032 + side facing out/up. The battery is very difficult to put in place. If there's a trick I'd like to know about it. I managed to get the cap back on but all the contacts aren't correct because not all the levels of intensity light up. There are brief/inadequate instructions to install the battery online, but not included with the item.The description does mention that the battery is NOT included. If you have a difficult collimation with your telescope you may need more that one battery. Most people can collimate their telescope in a couple minutes and it shouldn't be a problem.Once I got the laser to come on, the collimation was fairly easy. This tool works pretty slick and seems pretty straight forward. My telescope has a Bird-Jones lens which is a bit more of a challenge but not impossible to use once you understand the difference. I didn't even have to take the Bird-Jones lens out. Just line up the projected red circle centered in the target area and you are good as new. If the circle is fuzzy, then you don't have the beam properly pointed at the focussing tube.

Very successful night session with my cheap Hexeum 130mm reflector, after collimating with this very inexpensive laser collimator. Jupiter with 3 moons and crescent Venus were wonderful to behold, and much sharper than they appeared the other night, before collimation.