<<Out of curiosity, how would you know that Herring DID make
a Cave mirror.
Did he, or any other cave employee actually sign or label mirrors
they made?
Thanks,
Richard Chalfan
Kent, WA>>
Alika contributed to the search for Apollo landing sites as a member of the staff of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He was legendary for his skill as an observer, planetary artist (his pencil drawings of the Moon were outstanding), and mirror-maker. For a glimpse of this period, see the cover story of Sky and Telescope, January 1964 -- the first issue I ever bought. Since it was that, I feasted on that issue many dozens of times before the February issue came!
In due course, I made it into Sky&Tel myself, in the October 1967 article about the Perseid meteor shower. That issue had just hit our mailboxes, and I got my 15 minutes, when a tiny one-inch newspaper item announced that someone wanted to start up an astronomy club here in Orange County California, and was anyone interested? I called the phone number and came to the first organizational meeting in Chuck LeBrun's freezing garage (his wife look one look at us, and WOULD NOT let us in!) in mid-November 1967.
I thereby became, at 15, the youngest of the dozen or so founding members of the Orange County Astronomers, in Southern California. Another founding member was Mr Ed Beck. Ed worked in Tom Cave's shop on Anaheim Street in Long Beach, which I visited a number of times; I still use the Cave 6" f/4 RFT which I bought there for $125. When Alika left his position at the LPL he came to work for Tom Cave, figuring mirrors; and yes, believe it or not, he signed the back of each mirror he figured.
It was through Ed that Alika learned of the Orange County Astronomers, and became a much honored member. Members flocked to him to either make or refigure mirrors for them, and -- having observed with perhaps a dozen Herring mirrors during our OCA star parties -- I can say that signing his work was as justified for Alika as it was for Rembrandt, and for the same reason. His quickie, toss-em-off mirrors were routinely 1/20 wave rms; and when it came to his OWN mirror, he chuckled about going back to it, over and over again down through the years, delicately retouching -- and then doing it again, in quiet, loving pursuit of perfection. I stood in the gaggle of groupies who surrounded Alika after one of our meetings while he recounted this, and someone asked just how good his mirror was, now. A little better than a hundredth of a wave, he replied. Being a young fool, I piped up, and asked, "When will it be good enough?" He said to me with a wink, "NEVER!" (Doubtless you will all be relieved to learn that I am no longer young).
Although I've answered the question that was in your post, I can't resist ending with the story of my last encounter with Alika. It was 1973: the OCA was now seven years old, Alika must have been in his mid-60's, and I had been stuck with the Vice Presidency for that year (a leading indicator of the club's imminent collapse). All my voracious reading of Astronomy books and magazines, combined with a good memory [except when I'm under oath! ;-) ], had given me a reputation in the club as someone who was factually very knowledgeable; by that point other members routinely deferred to me in questions of fact.
So that's the setting for the following encounter. In the course of a talk about photometry, someone in the 100+ crowd called out, "What's the visual magnitude of Sirius?" Most people drew a blank, so I spoke up at the exact same moment that someone else did.
O'Hara: "Minus one point five six." And simultaneously,
Other: "Minus one point five TWO!"
That someone else and I both spun in our seats simultaneously, to see who had sung with them, out of harmony: IT WAS ALIKA HERRING! =8^O) For what seemed like an eternity, as everyone watched us face each other like gunfighters at High Noon, we looked at one another -- the Old Master and the Young Turk. The room was silent. And then, since it WAS Alika Herring, I smiled, nodded and said, "I defer to YOU, sir!" Everyone broke out in laughter and talk, and the Old Lion settled back into his chair with a satisfied nod of the head.
After the meeting adjourned, I was pounded on the back by many friends,
who said, "So....there's somebody who even YOU won't cross!!" "Are
you kidding?" I said, "That's Alika Herring!" "You know, Tom,"
said one, "you're not as dumb as you look!"