Your Ideas Wanted !

[KenMiller]

I'm fixin' to show my ignorance...

The two primary light path modifying elements in amateur telescopes are lenses and mirrors.

I would expect that the quality of a mirror (or lens) could be comprehensively described by two factors - how much light it reflects (or with lenses - passes) and how little it distorts that light.

Now, I imagine that the amount of reflection might vary by frequency and the distortion might need to be categorized by type, but certainly, with the proper euqipment, all of those things could be determined with great precision.

There might be disagreement with regard to how important one of those measurements is to a particular application compared to another, but that seems to be a completely separate discussion.

[pizwiz]

Just a simple Example:
One manufacturer uses the foucault test and another uses an interferometer and they both told me that their method is the only right one and that the other guys measurements are meaningless.
Add to that a lot of the misleading jargon in how the results are stated and the average joe just throws up his hands in disgust.
Back in the 80's S&T did a bunch of critical articles on this topic and many manufacturers had to back-paddle and re-write some of the wild claims they were making abou their optics.
I would assume that most Amateur Astronomers, like me, don't have degrees in physics or optics and have to rely on what we are told. While I am sure that there is a relationship between peak to valley ratio, strehl ratio and wavefront error ( they probably all state the same thing in a different form), I don't care to do the research and math to figure it all out.

Adolph

[sjs42]

You might try talking to the folks at optic-craft machining. They build great stuff at very reasonable prices.

[BT Technologies]

I did not know that they were still in business.

Thanks for the post!!

Originally Posted by sjs42

You might try talking to the folks at optic-craft machining. They build great stuff at very reasonable prices.

[KenMiller]

http://www.opticcraft.com/

These look WAY cool! What about the electronics and software to drive them?

[sjs42]

My pleasure.

[pizwiz]

Ken, check out the "Clock Drive" section of the web-site.
They have several drive systems there and also links to others if I recall.

Adolph

[Jim Fusco]

This is something to consider AM Astrotech http://212.45.154.136/ritchey-info01.asp

Also here http://www.astrotech.it/italiano/pro...amadvanced.htm
Tell Gino Jim sent you.
But this is neat too http://www.meade.com/maxmount/index.html

But since you are spending big bucks I would contact Andrey Strakhov and build a 20" mak or order the 16" 1610 intes deluxe.

Jim

[rcg]

How about a parallax HD300C Observatory Class mount with 300lbs capacity....