I persuaded myself to purchase a little add-on for my telescope. It is not really on the ‘must-have’ list, but it is a very, very ‘nice-to-have’ if you have a reflector: I upgraded my telescope with Bob’s Knobs.

As I mentioned earlier, in order to make sure the mirrors of my reflector are correctly aligned, I need to collimate my scope regularly.  The process of collimating a scope is not difficult, especially not with a laser collimator.  But it is a delicate procedure never the less. Having to handle a wrench in order to adjust 3 tiny screws is a risky procedure as there is a tiny chance that the wrench might fall into the refractor tube and damages the primary mirror. now imagine collimating a telescope outside, in winter, under (near) freezing temperatures, wearing warm gloves.  In my opinion that is just a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

Bob’s knobs replace the tiny screws with knobs that you can operate without a wrench, completely taking away the risk of damaging the primary mirror.  Awesome huh!

Installation tips

A few tips to purchase and install Bob’s Knobs if you would want to do so also:

• Choose the length of your Bob’s Knobs carefully. Choose them too long and you risk not being able to install the dust cover over your telescope afterwards.
• Point the telescope downwards whilst replacing the screws.  If something falls, it does not fall onto the primary mirror. How ironic would that be right?
• Unscrew the original screws one by one and immediately replace each one with a Bob’s Knob before unscrewing the next. Do not unscrew all 3 original screws first and then try to install all 3 Bob’s Knobs.