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Old 18-06-2006, 04:55 PM
cristian abarca
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cristian abarca is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Melbourne Vic
Posts: 290
Hi Gary that looks much better. The edge is slightly turned but if it's not too wide (You can measure it with a ruler) you can always beville it out. As far as the dog buiscuit or lemon peel effect goes if it's only amall amouts I wouldn't worry about it. If it's really severe you may have to go back to the last fine grinding grit and repolish. I wouldn't do this unless it was really bad. As it's your first mirror I would concentrate more on getting the shape correct when figuring. You may end up with apperture fever and may want to build a larger one, I know I have, and getting the right shape is of much greater importance. Getting back to the dog buiscuit effect (According to the literature I have) this is mainly caused by too quick or jerky strokes and can be cured by smooth. firm and slow strokes. I would probably try a little longer trying to remove the turned edge as long as I didn't create another problem an then go onto figuring. The way it is now it is ready for figuring. My first mirror ended up with a fair bit of dogbuiscuit and I have a bit of trouble getting the image to focus exactly. (We found this on some factorymade telescopes as well and some of these are used for photography and it's not noticeable) It also ended up with a turned down edge. Regardless of this because it was my first attempt and I knew that I was going to make more mirrors I was not greatly concerned. I still get good views and is still better than1/4 wave. I was aiming for 1/10 but just mist out. I was told of the defects by more experienced observers but overall it was judged as being a pretty good effort for a first mirror. So if you are going to make more mirrors go ahead and figure. From what I can see so far yours is going to turn out better than my first effort if you get the shape correct and you should be happy with that. As for my second mirror I didn't end up with dog buiscuit or a turned down edge. it was perfectly spherical. I didn't figure it because I was just practising. I finally worked out what I'm going to do next and I'm going to make a Clasical Cassegrain that I can use as an F5 Newtonian as well. I got told on saturday at my local ATM meeting that the figures look Ok so here goes.

Regards Cristian
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