>
>I heard a talk once about the Space Telescope, in which the speaker said that
>the mirror was "diamond turned". I took this to mean that the mirror was
>turned on a lathe with a diamond tool. I imagine that you could use an
>interferometer to control the positioning of the tool, but I had a hard time
>believing that this would really work.
>
>Does anyone know anything about this process? I've often thought of making
>various kinds of interferometrically controlled things. I played with a
>michelson interferometer in school, and was amazed at the precision of its
>measurements (I measured how the speed of light changes with gas pressure!).
I think Mackintosh's(sp?) Maksutov had the curve generated by diamond cutter.
Another fried of mine (Dave Vickers now at Quantum HD I think) made some lenses in a class in Colorado Springs by using a "diamond lathe" to cut lens surfaces. He was very impressed with the process.
Kevin.