[Daveskywill (David)]

So after that idea of flexing mirrors was presented to me;

now I got to thinking about if we could make special lenses that

have a front and back, usual, solid coating, but then in the middle

change it's curvature by flexing it (maybe by pumping a certain optical

fluid in or out).

Of course if you could combine an optical train of flexed mirrors and flexed

refractive optics, you could probably have quite a system; variable focal

length, variable zoom, you probably wouldn't have to worry about

vignetting and so forth.


Also here's another one: I'm wondering about a variable-angle star

diagonal, mirror thing. This one I pretty much came up with myself.

The idea is getting a flat mirror to be turned at different angles and

keep the eyepiece holder (closer to you) at the appropriate reflective

angle. At first I was thinking of 2 pulleys, one lower (fixed) and one

up at the high end, this last would adjust the angle of the eyepiece

holder. The two pulleys would be connected by a cable thing (it might

be sprocketed so it wouldn't slip) and it's twisted. This is so when this

mirror thingy is lowered, the eyepiece holder thing is at the appropriate

angle. I see that this would work alright for right-angle and then

starting shallower. But after awhile you see there's a problem (the light

cone angle, of scope and focal plane). This would make it impractical

for a total variable angle all the way form right angle to straight-through.

However with some engineering it could likely be done.

I can send a few CAD pictures on this, dimonstrating this pulley, action.



PS: like they say necessity is the mother of invention. And these ideas

could be very useful. Any ideas or advice?

David