Re: ATM A fairly good mirror, I think

[Michael Peck <mpeck1@ix.netcom.com>]

"Richard Schwartz" <richas@earthlink.net> wrote:

>
>Imagine the results if the Hubble telescope had been star tested prior to
>launch: the "managers" at Perkin-Elmer would have declared the star test
>inaccurate and invalid because nobody could prove that the mirror was 1/.06
>waves instead of 1/.07 waves.

It was star tested, only *after* launch. That's how it was discovered that 
it had 290nm +- 5nm of low order spherical aberration. Let's see, that 
would be 1.9 waves P-V at 500nm, more or less. It was also found to have 
about 20nm rms of residual higher order aberrations in the form of circular 
zones from small laps.

I bet you didn't know star testing could be made quantitative.

Mike Peck


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