In the September 2012 Sky & Telescope

I’ve been building and using telescopes for more than three decades and I’ll share a secret with you: collimating a Newtonian reflector is easy. The trick is to stay tightly focused on your goal and not get distracted by side issues. In place of my usual Telescope Workshop column, this month we have an expanded feature article, Easy Reflector Collimation, in which I show how to align your Newtonian's optics for optimal performance.

In spite of its size, Scutum is a binocular wonderland rich with intriguing Milky Way fields and home to a pair of Messier objects. In this issue's Binocular Highlights column, we take a look at the open clusters M26 and M11.