Re: ATM Polish, polish...polish

["Bob May" <bobmay@nethere.com>]

First off, the pitch is way too soft for the temp you are working at.  If
you can, drop the room temp by a good 10 deg. or more and this may make the
pitch firm enough to last for a while.
I tend to prefer to test for doneness in the polish dept. by putting the
mirror on the Foucault tester and seeing what the return is from the finder
LED in the camera.  This test shows the unpolished areas as light because
the pits diffract the light and thus blast it everywhere.  I can see
unpolished areas very plainly with this test that I can barely see with the
10x loupe.  An equivalent test would be to shine a flashlight on the mirror
from the ROC with your eye nearby and the reflection not going into your eye
but rather off to the side a bit and see what part of the mirror is light.
The brighter areas are what hasn't gotten polished out yet.
Bob May
http://nav.to/bobmay
bobmay@nethere.com
NEW! http://bobmay.astronomy.net