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Re: [ATM] Basic mirror support question...
FWIW, in the 1850's, Leon Foucault originally made very thin mirrors, by our standards, and to improve the quality of the images, he used a small balloon underneath the mirror, which he could inflate or deflate (partially) by using a rubber tube that he could blow into or let air out of while he was observing through the eyepiece. He was quite the innovator!
Guy Brandenburg
Jerry <wa4guu@verizon.net> wrote: Besides the ventilation and equilibrium concern, a problem with using
pillows to support a mirror is that the mirror compresses the soft supports
until it is compressed to be rigid enough support the mirror. Then you point
the telescope to another object and by gravity all those pillows readjust to
the forces by either expanding or compressing, meaning the mirror moves in
the cell.
Jerry
Guy Brandenburg
Washington, DC
My home page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~gfbranden/GFB_Home_Page.html
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