If interested in this and in the San Francisco East Bay, there's an ongoing workshop for this:
http://www.chabotspace.org/telescope-makers-workshop.htm
(I'm interested but haven't done it yet...)
How do you turn a chunk of glass into a telescope mirror?
31–36 of 36 posts
Re: How do you turn a chunk of glass into a telescope mirror?
#32I don't understand how randomly moving the grinding tool ends up with a perfectly spherical result.
Can anyone explain?
Re: How do you turn a chunk of glass into a telescope mirror?
#33Yes but can you make a mirror like Kent did in Real Genius? "KENT: See! Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a film virtually 100 per cent reflective, one micron thick and apply it to a mirror this shape?" http://fringe.davesource.com/Fringe/Entertainment/Scripts/Re...
That may be the line in that script but it wasn't in the actual film. He just says something about making the "phase conjugate tracking system mirror" or something to that effect. That must have been some sort of "working script" as I recognize many other lines that were different or omitted in the final film.
That was not the final script, but Kent made the mirror.
3:30 of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ds0wYpc1eM
he just said something like 'look I mounted it' because he had already shown him the mirror before and the last thing he did was mount it.
Later when they are pretending to be God talking to Kent, they say "what do you think the ... mirror was for" indicating that he had made it.
Re: How do you turn a chunk of glass into a telescope mirror?
#34Brings back memories - I ground a 30 cm reflector back in my teens. Was interesting to read how they no longer use two glass blanks, instead use one blank and one tile grinding tool. Took me most of the summer to get the mirror ready for coating, and that was working on it most every day for at least an hour. All very worth it when everything was finished and assembled and we pointed it up into the night sky. Nothing like a clear cool fall night and a decent (if amateurish) scope to contemplate extremely large numbers.
Re: How do you turn a chunk of glass into a telescope mirror?
#35http://allarscopes.com/telescopes/488mm_f5/index2_eng.htm This is a hardcore version. It is interesting that such extremely low technology methods have so precise results.
What an impressive amount of work! Absolutely beautiful though.
Re: How do you turn a chunk of glass into a telescope mirror?
#36Here's another account of how to do it, in a very authentic voice of somebody who's done it more than once: