Video Collimation Kits for 1.25 & 2.00 inch focusers

I have followed with great interest the adventures of newbies and oldbies helping each other with collimating scopes  and volunteering my (hopefully helpful) suggestions now and again.   Of particular inspiration, I noticed Vic Menard often assists individuals who, by taking a photo through a collimation cap (e.g., the Rigel Systems Aline) of the scope mirros they’re collimating and post it on cloudynights.com, Vic would download the photo, add colored rings showing how the focus draw tube, secondary, and primary should line up and suggest what tweaks were needed to achieve collimation.

This has always struck me as a great idea except for this process relied on static snapshots and iterated on cloudynights.com.  As helpful as this is to illustrate how to improve collimation, collimation is a dynamic activity not a static one.  There are a couple of devices offering “live video” collimation, some which will superimpose collimation guide rings onto the live image (e.g., wifi-Aline), but are all are a bit pricey and have their pros and cons.  So I set off to investigate how to make a dynamic, affordable alternative for live video collimation just using an iPhone or Android phone.  And demonstrated it is an eminently affordable and effective doable do to achieve these 3 foundation requirements.

• Live video of the optical components to be collimated
• Displaying the live video on a larger screen
• Ability to superimpose collimation guide rings on the live image

The steps and results have been posted here on cloudynight,  published In Astronomy Technology Today (Volume 18 Issue 3) and posted on my website.

https://www.rigelsys...ollimation.html

If you're interested in trying Live video collimation, I now offer two kits, one for 1.25" focuser and one for 2.00" focusers.  

1) The 1.25" kit includes a phone holder (fits focus tubes up to 1.9" diameter), a 1.25" Aline, reflective center target (round), and 2 collimation ring transparencies. $19.95

2) The 2.00" kit includes a phone holder (fits 2" eyepiece focus tubes), a 2.00" Aline, reflective center target (fat triangle), and 2 collimation ring transparencies. $34.95

Pictures of both are attached.  If you're interested in either drop me an e-mail at rigelsys0@gmail.com