From: "Bob May" 
To: "atmlist" 
Reply-To: "Bob May" 


David, the first thing you need to do is to build the mirror support that
you are going to use in the scope.  Whenever you aren't working on the
mirror, leave it on the support.
Next, figure out how to setup your testers so that you are more looking
down on the mirror rather than put it on a stand standing up vertically. 
This will allow the mirror to act as if it was in the scope and being used.
Next, get the mirror spherical.  Don't worry about trying to make it
parabolic right now although if you have the doughnut shape that could be a
parabola but isn't there, that will be fairly acceptable.  The thing right
now is to get rid of any astigmatism that may be on the mirror.  I'd also
use the tester and rotate the KE to find out what the difference between
the two directions of the stig are.
I might note that you probably got to where you are by not properly
supporting the glass in the final grinding and polishing stages but you are
at the point where local polishing may be able to get the stig. out.
Lastly, a single large image is a pain to work through as the image gets to
be hard to pan through.  Better to write a quick HTML page and leave the
images only as big as they need to be and leave the rest of the whitespace
as part of a table.
Bob May
http://nav.to/bobmay
bobmay{at}nethere.com
NEW! http://bobmay.astronomy.net

--- BBBS/NT v4.00 MP