I need help finding a cassegrain secondary

I'm looking for help finding a optical shop that will fabricate a secondary mirror for a 12.5" f/10 classic Cassegrain telescope. The secondary was dropped when the mirror was in for a new coating and the optical shop in Iowa City "assumes no responsibility with customers equipment". Any help would be appreciated as this VERY well known optical shop refuses to do the right thing and replace the mirror.

Thanks, Martin

Take a look at the laws in their state, check their website and see if they have this in a disclaimer.

I would sue them! No way they are not responsible for dropping the mirror. I would tell them that I would let everyone I know in the world know about all the details if they did not make this right. Then let them sort it all out when people find out that they are "Not Responsible for Damage Done in the Shop" and see how much it effects their business.

Might not be the nicest thing, but personally I would be very upset with them and would do whatever it took to get it taken care of or to get my satisfaction. :S

How badly was the mirror damaged? If its just an edge
chip, it might make no difference in the performance.

If you need a new mirror, I'd talk to Bob Royce.
http://www.rfroyce.com/

Most mirror coaters will protect themselves with
strong disclaimers about responsibility for
damage. Its pretty standard in the industry that
all work is done "at customer's risk."
Otherwise one serious accident could bankrupt these
little mom & pop shops. Not sure about your place.

Good luck!

Martin,

I am with Floyd...I wouldn't go away easily on this one. What a ridiculous situation! In the event that you need an optician to fabricate a new one because these losers will not, I would highly recommend Michael Lockwood ([email protected]). I personally know Mike and have several of his mirrors, all superb. He refigured a secondary for me on a Mak-Cass I rehabbed and now it is an awesome instrument. His website is www.loptics.com.

Hope it all turns out well in the end for you!

Steve

Martin:

Your story is very disappointing. I can't imagine operating a business and damaging a part and not taking full responsibility. It seems you have provided enough information that a person could figure out the vendor here... Iowa and Obsession seem to be key words.

As far as this being a standard practice in the industry, I don't know. I looked over the L&L Optical website and found nothing of the sort, it may be there but I didn't see it. L&L seems to do a wide variety of coatings, many of them are not of interest to amateur astronomers, I suspect their main market is probably commercial and/or military jobs. I doubt a commercial customer would work with a vendor who would not replace something they damaged because they dropped it.

I would think any disclaimer was there to cover claims that the coating process itself damaged the mirror rather than obvious situations such as dropping the mirror.

Jon