ATM What should I be seeing?

[The Silent Observer <silent1@ix.netcom.com>]

I finally got my Foucault tester finished, and I'm looking at the
surface of my 8" f/6.8 project.  The last time it was tested, five weeks
ago, there was a very bumpy looking surface that I took to be due to
polishing with pads (I hadn't yet even gotten my pitch lap at that
time), along with a small amount of variation from spherical (a prolate
ellipse) and a small turned edge.

After about an hour and a half of additional work with a fairly hard
button lap (about half of that work actual polishing time, the rest
charging, pressing, setup and cleanup for three sessions), I'm seeing a
lot less surface texture, but it's still not completely smooth; OTOH,
there seems to be no visible "shape" to the surface -- that is, it's
spherical to the limits of my ability to read the shadows, and I can't
see anything I can interpret as a turned edge; the surface at focus
looks perfectly flat except for the texture.

The texture has a distance scale of 1/4" to 1/2", and height wise is
about 1/4 what was there before, as nearly as I can judge.

What I'm not sure about is whether I'm seeing dog biscuit (doubtful to
my mind, because I've been using a slow stroke, polishing nor more than
twice around the barrel between recharges, with a press after each
recharge, and the temperature in my basement is remarkably stable) or if
this is just the texture I should expect when polishing with cerium
oxide.  I don't currently have a way to photograph the surface, and I'm
certain I'll have some eyeball opinions in a couple hours from the local
ATMs, but I've seen a lot of good advice on this group in the past few
months.  Any takers?

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Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer           NAR # 70141-SR Insured
Rocket Pages             http://members.aol.com/silntobsvr/launches.htm

Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth
and don't expect them to be perfect.