Homemade telescopes
An article at NCTimes.com discusses making your own telescope mirror:
Grinding and polishing a homemade telescope mirror takes a certain determination, especially when it's possible to buy telescope parts online or at a nearby specialty shop.
Carpenter Peter De Baan said it took him a year, working off and on, to make his first mirror.The process consists of taking a glass disk and rubbing it by hand over the surface of a mold or "tool" covered with jewelers' polish. Periodically, the polisher adjusts his work by forming a test pattern with light reflected from the mirror.
Although the mirrors do reflect enough to check their shapes, it is not possible to see through them. They don't become silvery until the mirror-maker sends the finished glass off to a commercial service to be covered with aluminum.
De Baan hosts an informal mirror-making class that meets on Saturday mornings at his magnificently cluttered workshop in Escondido, close to Highway 78.
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posted by Tako John @ 9:29 AM
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