This star party at
Stewart Park was one of the best ones we've done.
During the day, we got
to see some nice Sunspots.
Waiting for it to get
dark so we could get a look through Peter's new 20" Scope.
We had a few trees in
the way, but most of the sky was available to us.
Amateur
Telescope Making
The day has come to
pour Mike's pitch lap for his 8" mirror. Here we have hot pitch in
the can, the tool on the left, and the mirror on the right under the
hex pattern pitch mold.
Here Dave is pouring
the pitch onto the mold.
The tool is placed on
the hot pitch and left to cool for a short time before being removed
from the mirror.
The cooling, but
untrimmed lap.
And now Mike is
trimming his pitch lap.
Ken starting to grind
his 16" mirror.
Ken grinding
his 16" mirror.
Mike getting his first
taste of polishing.
Using the Ronchi
Tester to judge the figure of the mirror.
I thought a sphere
showed straight lines!
Right: Results of a figuring
session. You can see the difference between the top images and the
bottom ones. Mike's mirror had a bump in the center with a slightly
turned edge, but now the center is getting better, and by the time
we're finished figuring the mirror, the turned edge will probably be
gone as well.
Astrophotography
AURORA
We had a pretty nice
Aurora in Medford in 2001 (March 30). Here's a few shots of the
Aurora and the sunspots that caused it. All Aurora shots are
five minutes on Fuji 400 ASA film (the exposures were too long.
