Has anyone heard of any research or experimentation on the use of plastic, or resins for making large mirrors. By large I mean about 20 - 25". I'm sure there must be some fairly thermally stable plastics out there. This type of scope would be just for visual work in a dob mount.
My thought is that you could mount the mirror in an enclosed cell and use adjusting screws to push or pull the mirror into configuration as the temperature changes. Perhaps a CCD and a computer could be used in the adjustment process. It would be nice to produce large mirrors at a fraction of the cost of Pyrex ones and they would be much lighter.
Any thoughts or comments? Am I totally "loony tunes"?
Don Loftus