Back to Home

ATM Forum Message

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums | Amateur Telescope Making | Post
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
Polishing A Mirror

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Robert May on August 29, 2003 20:26:01 UTC

Unfortunatly, you are going to have to remove that aluminum from the glass to get at the pits that are on the glass.
Luckily, the process of removing the aluminum isn't hard to do - just start polishing the mirror.
The next bit of a problem is that you're going to have to learn how to polish and figure a mirror in order to gain the surface that you need as just as soon as you start polishing, any figure that the mirror may have had is going to go away.
I'd suggest that you see if your local astronomy club has somebody that knows how to make mirrors or even has a mirrormaking group that meets regularly. Most large cities have a group that meets to do mirrormaking.
In addition, there are a number of websites that show how the mirrormaking process is done as well as several email lists and forums like this one with people like me that answer questions on the subject. In addition, supplies for doing this are readily available on the web from places like gotgrit.com and mirrorkits.com and other places.
I'll encourage you to finish that mirror yourself and become one of us that can say that I did it myself and the mirror is a lot better than what I can buy on the market!
I run a class in the San Diego area for mirror making and my spec for a finished mirror surface is 1/10th of a wave surface accuracy and many mirrors in the area have been made to much better than that for a spec. You can do it and do it well!

Follow Ups:

Login to Post
Additional Information
Google
 
Web www.astronomy.net
DayNightLine
About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
"dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
are trademarks of John Huggins