From: Guy Brandenburg 
To: Tom Krajci 
CC: 'Jeff Anderson-Lee' ,  atm{at}shore.net
Reply-To: Guy Brandenburg 


Up until last year, there was a long string of years (I forget how many) in
which no star testing of optics was possible. The winner in the optical
division last year was - as far as I could tell - PERFECT. There was
absolutely no difference inside and outside of focus in the diffraction
image. I had never seen that before. And, since I had never seen perfection
in a star test before, then I didn't know what it really looked like. I had
always thought that the scopes I tried it on were OK, but that the little
crinkles and stuff were either because of poor seeing or tube currents or
my eye or something. It was really, really illuminating (npi) to look at
the star test on last year's winner and then to look at mine (which was not
bad, just not perfect!) about 20 yards away in the same field.

Guy

Tom Krajci wrote:
> My concern is that optics...under the current way that Stellafane does
> things...can not be evaluated if the weather is bad.  But craftsmanship
> is always judged...rain or shine.  It may be an unintended/subtly
> implied consequence...but it seems that craftsmanship is more important
> than optics?  That does not rest well with me in regard to telescopes.
>
> And it's not hard to set up artificial star tests.  That is what makes
> it doubly disappointing for me.

--
Guy Brandenburg
Washington DC, USA
http://home.earthlink.net/~gfbranden/GFB_Home_Page.html

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