One
of my favorite projects while working for
the UCLA Astronomy Department was The
UCLA 24"
telescope
I converted a MeadeETX-90RA into a Goto telescope
Back in the mid 70's, I made (and briefly used) a 6" aluminum telescope mirror. The blanks came from a company called Innovative Optical Materiel. While they claimed that their aluminum alloy was "special", just about any aluminum should work.
This company is long out of business, but I still have a copy of their grinding instructions on making Aluminum Mirrors.
If you decide to make an aluminum mirror, I'd like to hear about your experiences. Also, note that there's some milling and power tools mentioned in their document. Please be careful and use common sense.
When milling out the curve on an aluminum mirror, I used these equations:
Calculating the Sagitta of a spherical mirror
I converted a MeadeETX-90RA into a Goto telescope
Back in the mid 70's, I made (and briefly used) a 6" aluminum telescope mirror. The blanks came from a company called Innovative Optical Materiel. While they claimed that their aluminum alloy was "special", just about any aluminum should work.
This company is long out of business, but I still have a copy of their grinding instructions on making Aluminum Mirrors.
If you decide to make an aluminum mirror, I'd like to hear about your experiences. Also, note that there's some milling and power tools mentioned in their document. Please be careful and use common sense.
When milling out the curve on an aluminum mirror, I used these equations:
Calculating the Sagitta of a spherical mirror
Sagitta at any radius of a spherical mirror:S = ROC - SQRT (ROC^2 - r^2)
Sr = SQRT (ROC^2 - y^2) - SQRT (ROC^2 - r^2)
where ROC = radius of curvature
r = radius of mirror
y = radius at which sagitta is measured.