Re: ATM DAVE THOMAS your 8"Mirror is .........

["Bob May" <bobmay@nethere.com>]

Before you ship that mirror off to the coater, please put it into the
telescpe and test it on the stars.  The Double-Double is one nice test - a
6" uncoated mirror can split the 4 stars very nicely so any bigger mirror
shouldn't have a problem there either.  Nearby Vega will be an excellent
target for looking at the Airy disk as well as the third star in that
triangle.  Faint objects won't be visible as you are only getting 4% of the
light rather than 90% of the light to the EP but bright stars will do very
nicely for testing the quailty of the surface.
There's nothing like finding out after you have spent all that money for the
aluminizing that you have the wrong shape on the surface.
Bob May
http://nav.to/bobmay
bobmay@nethere.com
NEW! http://bobmay.astronomy.net