Mirror Hold-down Force

Steve Scampini (scampini@hp-mpg.an.hp.com)
Tue, 1 Aug 95 13:51:30 EDT

Hi Everyone, I did not mean to imply that the state of the art called for applying clamping force on the mirror via the front edge clips...it just seemed prudent when I mounted the mirror into the holder to "snug up" the clips. In retrospect, I am sure I was too aggressive and now plan to loosen them up until they just touch. I have reason to believe I may be experiencing some bowing due to this. Live, read the atm digest and learn...

On a similar note, a very experienced atm friend uses a trick which may be old hat but I have not seen reference to before...he "tunes" out a bit of spherical abberation in his primary by heating the back side at a certain radius with a ring of resistors with a series reostat to control the power. I witnessed a before/after star test at various power levels and walked away impressed if not totally convinced. I am guessing (if this really works) that he achieves some sort of differential heating across the mirror. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

Steve