I'm finishing my first telescope now (6" f/7.5 DOB), yet can't seem to find a "take me by the hand" book explaining the various mirror testing techiques (Foucault, Ronchi, Milles-Lecroix, etc...) and procedures. I own and have read both Texereau's & Berry's chapters on Foucault testing and still find some of it quite confusing. Obviously, I'm weak with math, and this being my first attempt I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the different methods of testing to choose from (I wish I understood ONE method completely!) Reading postings from this list makes me wonder if grinding my own mirror was a good idea (I THOUGHLY enjoyed the grinding phase - but that was eccentially grunt work in the garage, which I can do. <grin>) I've just about finished building my Foucault tester of Richard Berry design, so I'm about a week away from testing - if I could figure out how to do it! I've download "TEX.ZIP" and "MIR5ZONE" from ftp.best.com/pub/robertf/atm and have installed them on my computer, but since I don't understand alot of what I see I don't have a great deal of faith in my abilities to use these tools. Could I possibly sound more desperate!?!
Can anyone suggest a book, posting, site that can walk a novice like me through this? I've seen "Optical Shop Testing" advertised in Willman-Bell, but the $99 they want is kinda unsettling.
TIA for any help...
Mr. 2+2=5 Doug Reeves / dreeves@metronet.com / 73742,3336 Compuserve