Don't worry Michael, all is not lost.
The big spinning circle on your primary mirror may be either a collimation issue of the laser, or it could be a registration error
of the entire collimator.
First check the collimator. If you can get the unit to lay flat on a table edge, simply spin the laser and look at the spot it
generates on a far away wall. When you spin the laser, if the spot stays still your device is collimated.
If you can't get the unit to lay flat, you can make a v block. This is simple a pice of wood with a vee shaped notch in it
where you can put the collimator in it and spin it. Another way to make the vee block is to pound two sets of long nails
into a scrap piece of wood. Put each pair of nails in so they criss cross, and form a vee.
If you find your laser is not collimated, sometimes there are three micro hex screws in the body of your colimator.
By loosening and tighening these hex screws you can adust the angle of the laser in the body of your collimator.
Sometimes the screws are underneath a label, and you have to remove the label. The picture of your collimator
on amazon, I cannot see these tiny screws, but ... sometimes these are stock photos, and don't represent the actual unit.
If you find your collimator is out of alignment, and you can't align it, I would send it back to amazon.
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Next, If your collimator is collimated, and you still see the dot spin on the primary the most likely cause is that the collimator is
not square in the focuser. This can happen for many reasons, one is that you have tightend the locking screw too tight.
Try playing around with the collimator in the focusing tube.
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Did your scope come with a collimation cap. These work pretty good. I can use one to get my scope close, but not perfect due to my
bad eyes. Use your cap to align your optics, then try the laser again. That will eliminate gross errors in the secondary alignment.
If you do get the laser dot to not make a cirlce on the primary after all of this, you should use a barlow with your laser to adjust the
primary mirror. Even small errors in registration of the laser will throw off the primary adjustment. See barlowed laser tecchnique
on this site.
VT
Edited by vtornado, 22 January 2019 - 04:36 PM.