Artificial star for collimation and optics test - RGB

Artificial star - white light - for telescope adjustment and optics test

An artificial star enables you to adjust the instrument perfectly. Especially advantageous is that you can use the star in closed rooms and thus have no disturbing air movements.

The light is divided into the RGB colours

With the Optik Star RGB you can carry out star tests in the individual colour channels (R - red / G - green / B - blue). This is a good way to see the focus difference in the individual colour ranges in refractors, for example, and also to check how well the optics are corrected in the respective colour ranges. If you have switched on all three colour channels, the artificial star shines in neutral white.

Practical tip by TS

To adjust an optic or to see deviations like astigmatism, coma etc., a relatively short distance to the optic is sufficient. Since at short distances the focal plane comes to lie correspondingly far behind the focuser, extension sleeves are needed. These extension sleeves can be obtained from us (see recommended accessories).
The aperture error of optics (spherical aberration) is very difficult to check with an artificial star. You should then set up the star at a distance that corresponds to about one third of the aperture in millimetres as the distance in metres. An instrument with an aperture of about 200 mm thus needs a distance of at least 66 metres. We therefore recommend carrying out this test rather on the real star. For all other areas, the artificial star is well suited.