Re: ATM Sky instruments or other cheap 10" mirror -- opinions?

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

If you do a mirror in the SDAA mirrormaking workshop, I don't accept any
mirror as being done that is less than 1/10th wave and most are usually a
fair bit better than that.  As a result, most of the production mirrors are
a bit worse than what comes out of the SDAA workshop.
I've also had a number of people bring in mirrors from the production shops
and none of them have been as good as what is being done in the workshop.
Had one guy bring in a 10" and it had an E of about 3 (parabola is 1) and he
made another mirror from plate glass and got the FL to about 1/4" of what
the first mirror is and it fit into his scope perfectly and he's in 7th
heaven now.
As to size of a scope, the larger the scope, the more you can see.  As long
as the scope is portable, you can always enjoy a large scope in town and
occasionally take it out to the dark skies for even better results.  The
only problem with a larger scope is that it's going to be a bit more
difficult to move and set it up.
Bob May
http://nav.to/bobmay
bobmay@nethere.com
NEW! http://bobmay.astronomy.net