A Quick Safety Tip on Collimation

In a recent conversation on the Cloudy Nights forum, a member had an accident that left their secondary and primary mirrors damaged. What happened is the secondary mirror became loose and fell onto the primary mirror. In this light, I'd like to make a "public service announcement" of sorts ;) If you're new to collimation and care of a Newtonian telescope, please make sure your optical tube is tilted while collimating. This ensures that if the secondary does fall off the spider (or if you drop the screwdriver), it won't hit your primary full-force! Maybe we can avoid any more of these accidents!

Clear skies!