Re: ATM Pegasus mirror rating for real?

[Mel Bartels <mbartels@efn.org>]

Todd Gross wrote:

> The "jist" of the question is that I am just curious why some people
> poo-poo
> me when I mention the rating.

We are a herd of sheep and have heard 'wolf' too many times...

My feeling is that Nova, Pegaus, and Galaxy have more thorough testing
procedures than was the standard even a few years ago.  See a comment
from Galaxy in recent AA mag where it is acknowledged that many optics
not meeting specs slipped through.  The Nova mirrors that I have seen
and the Pegasus mirrors that my experienced mirror making friends have
seen have been of eye-opening superior quality and consistency.  The
Galaxy mirrors have also been very good.  I would be remiss if I also
did not point out the very small shops such as Swayze's that produce
mirrors practically indistinguishable from perfect.

So, I think a change for the better has occured recently in commercial
small shop large optics.  If this standard can be maintained, it will
take a while for these new mirrors to propagate through the amateur
community and neutralize the hostile opinions that many experienced
amateurs using large scopes have of the wave rating issue and the misuse
of wave ratings by mirror vendors.  Think back to those old 17.5"
'diffraction limited' (ha - what a joke, you were lucky to have a mirror
1/2 wave) mirror days...  We have come a long way, and I think amateurs
wishing to buy instead of grind really have something to crow about
now.  I truly hope amateurs will ante up the dollars it takes for high
quality optics and move away from thinking cheapest first.

--
Clear skies, Mel Bartels    Programmer/Analyst, amateur astronomer
Eugene, Oregon, USA         homepage: http://www.efn.org/~mbartels
mailto:mbartels@efn.org     atm, atm-digest list-owner
Motorize A Dob: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html