[ATM] Basic mirror support question...

["P.K. Ferrick" <pferrick@tows.moric.org>]

Hi all,

I'm a high school physics teacher from Northern NY and, recently, the 
recipient of a donated 17.5 inch F4.5 primary mirror.  My science club 
students and I are planning on building a Dobsonian scope with the 
mirror.  Since I've been hovering around the fringes of the ATM 
community for quite a while, I think I have a pretty good idea of what 
the scope will look like, but there are a few questions that I haven't 
been able to find answers to in the archives, so here's one:

Regarding mirror cells:  it seems to me that the more support points one 
uses, the better able a program like PLOP is to generate a low-flexure 
design.  Why then wouldn't a flat, continuous surface (ideally an 
infinite number of points) give the best support? 

thanks,
Patrick

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