PERFECT Collimation with ASTAP?!? Fixing Celestron NexStar 6SE 8Se Collimation & Tilt

Using ASTAP image inspection and a fake starfield on a laptop to collimate a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. I had some pretty significant tilt in my images as well which I was able to diagnose and resolve with the help of ASTAP. This process worked out great, and I'll be using it to collimate my telescope going forward.
Thanks for watching, and clear skies!
Equipment used in this video:
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Celestron NexStar 6SE
Celestron Focus Motor Celestron Motor Model # 94155-A
Celestron f/6.3 Focal Reducer Model # 94175
Celestron Wedge Model # 93665
Celestron Piggyback Mount-NexStar 5, 6, 8 Model # 93609
Celestron C8 Dovetail Base for Finder Scope (Generic)
Celestron T-Adapter for Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescopes Model # 93633-A
StarPal 40cm Dovetail
SVBony SV106 50mm Guide Scope
SVBony SV905C Guide Camera
ZWO ASI294MC Pro

[@Darren-vf2qw]

Really glad you found the source of the majority of your issue! It made a huge improvement. Well done!

[@Felldisulfide]

Thanks again for the suggestion, my lensing is much more uniform, making more of the FOV usable. CS!

[@qonos68]

Hello, and this video appears to be EXACTLY made to address the problems I have with my 6SE! Honestly I was really suprised hearing about the tilt introduced by the 2"SCT to T adapter. I would appreciate if you answer some questions which popped up in my head while watching your video. 1) did you produce the fake starfield on your own? 2) how do you assure that the plane of the corrector plate and the plane of your fake starfield monitor are parallel and at the same height in order to avoid a unwanted tilting source? 3) at what distance are the scope and the starfield monitor? Thank you and clear skies.

[@Felldisulfide]

Hi Qonos, I tried making the 'starfield' with authentic images of stars copied from pictures I had taken, but these turned out to be too large. In the end I put evenly spaced pixels on a black background. This worked best. There should be a link to the file on my Google Drive in my previous video on back focus. With regards to the perpendicularity / plane - I measured the distance from the side wall and height. To make sure the screen was flat, I pushed it right up to the back wall. If you are visually collimating with a collimation circle, and a single pixel, the plane does not make as much of a difference (and the collimation will not be as precise), but ASTAP is very sensitive when using the starfield, so you want to get as close to on-center as you can, otherwise you will introduce tilt that you won't be able to correct. The scope was about 35 feet from the laptop. Great question! Clear Skies!

[@marchoude2303]

They actually called their product As-Tap??? hehehehe....that's hilarious

[@Darren-vf2qw]

The guy who makes it is Dutch. He pronounces it a little differently…

[@Felldisulfide]

Have to be careful not to pronounce it that way in videos. Automatic subtitles...

[@nikaxstrophotography]

too much farting around when there are quicker methods with similar results. But whatever works for you, thanks for at least showing us another method.

[@Felldisulfide]

Haha! The hours I spent figuring out how to best get this to work (complicated by tilt) concur with you, it WAS a lot of farting around! That said, I really like how ASTAP image inspector measures the distortions across the whole field of view. I've gone back and forth between single star and multi-star collimation, and while single-star (with an actual star, a laser collimator, or pixel on a screen) works great in most cases, I was fighting a losing battle with the edges. ASTAP finally 'revealed' what was really going on to a degree (pardon the pun) I could not perceive visually. I hope this ends up helping someone in a similar situation. Clear Skies!