Posts Made By: Thomas Dey

I entered a few test images in "insects" and notice that most recent ~new~ posts seem nowhere hilighted that I can find. Is there any way for us to see the most recent New Stuff?  Tom

Hi, Rod. Nice! I would occasionally watch the guys at our shop do this on big mirrors. And it was essentially the same. There was a pedestal/turntable that they worked at, and they used heavier tape attached to a plastic or rubber skirt, "just in case". Center hole had some dam and skirt there, too. The type of coating determined the chemistry and time. They wore rubber aprons, making it look rather like a butcher shop.  Tom

Cool, I think I may have tweaked over there a couple of weeks ago. Provided my (true!) anecdote, where I tried near EVERY solvent I could think of, on a recalcitrant coating... before taking it to EMF, where they successfully-stripped and coated it! I even attached a picture of some of the nasty stuff out in my shop (I didn't actually use the mercury, though). Turned out the coating had a blush of Chromium deposited before the silver. EMF got it off with... I'm guessing CHROMIUM STRIPPER!  Tom

I like Astromart!

Howdy; I'm still trying to get comfortable with the new and improved format here... Notice that one thing that it is no longer (?) highlighting recent Forum Posts? I see the time of most recent, in each category is there... but not otherwise flagged, as they used to be. And even the times are incorrect. Previously, I could quickly scan the Forum List for recent activity, ignoring the Political, which seems to dominate since we elected a president from the other party. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place?

PS The weak link in most Forums is just that. No convenient way to see what's recent, what's especially active. Lazy visitors (like me) just click out at that point.


One more observation, the improved Astromart seems to refresh WAY slower. That, also, tends to chase visitors away. Thanks!  Tom

Thanks, Greg! Closely related: This nice HP Laptop here, the latest version of Win 10 would not load; Bill Gates threatening to wreak havoc if I didn't spend days learning machine code; MS even called it "My Problem" (not theirs). I finally took it to a local IT service. They did that and more, with some difficulty. My conclusion: as hardware and software get more ~user-friendly~ ... the OPPOSITE happens. This also applies to web sites... too glitzy may chase away more users than it attracts! I don't want to have to learn the new and improved versions every couple of years.  Tom

Hi, Rod. It is indeed true that one can ~make~ a very nice specular Reflectance radiometer/photometer with only a light source and detector, and some judicious building of the mount, and one or two simple lenses.

I did a lot of that at work, but always had a nice radiometer head as the detector. (UDT made/makes them and most all are the same and VERY accurate!) Those can be had used for... maybe a hundred bucks? So, I built lots of specialized radiometers. Oh yeah, and filters to select bands. Things to guard against are narcissus [The narcissus effect occurs when the detector, through unintended reflections off internal lens surfaces, etc.], smacking the detector with photons abruptly, and hysteresis. We would typically get accuracies to 0.2%, which is good enough for a lot of stuff. That's 0.2% of the signal, so even high reflectivities are quite accurately measured. That referenced author properly acknowledges that a Reference Mirror is extremely helpful. I built one that looked like a "Doll House" That allowed three paths to the same detector: One direct, one off a reference mirror, and one off the ~test article~, all in rapid succession, without hiccoughing the detector. We used that as a pass/fail QC on coatings, with the reference mirror being one that had been certified as good, using a full-blown spectroradiometer. I have a lot of sketches and pictures of these things, being used. Will look for.

I found my sketch of the Doll House! We then proceeded to (have people) Q/C thousands of mirrors, using the Doll House that I built at home, in my humble shop, on a Sunday. The reason I was surprised to find it... I have hundreds of these sketches, all different configutrations, most then used for specialized radiometric tasks... and most all Quick and CHEAP!

PS also did lots if in-situ measurements of mirrors e.g. inside of telescopes...  FUN!  Tom

Howdy; One thing I really liked about the older version was that images attached to Forum Posts were archived and readily available to re-view. That seems to have gone away. I find that if I right-click on that little thumbnail now, it asks if I want to open the image in a new tab. So, I do that, and a screen comes up saying Sorry, etc. and no image. Is this something that you are working on?  Thanks!

PS I also can't help but notice that a different web site has attached pictures right there, overtly displayed in Forum Posts, which is very convenient when scanning through post histories. Nice and eye-catching.

Ummm... Another one: In the classifieds, Old Version allowed to search/visit current and SOLD ads... up to a year ago. Now the limit is 180 days. Is that also new and improved? It had been nice to review a year's history when seeking relatively rare things, e.g. The old TeleVue F/5 Genesis. A few come up per year, so 180-day history isn't much.

Both above seem to be capacity and bandwidth conservation. But, now-a-days, nearly all sites are providing MORE of both.  Thanks!  Tom

ADDENDUM: Think I may have discovered a buggish thing here. When I tried to attach an image, it disappeared. But, I was able to attach it via EDIT. That seems strange... need to EDIT an image in, else it disappears.  Tom

Finding out more, here. I notice that quite recent images are displaying fine, but older ones seem to have evaporated from the data-base. This is the message I get, when trying to open old Forum Posts that (had) image attached:

I'm trying to get used to the new Astromart and feeling pretty lost. Seeming like too much has changed, hard to search or find things that used to be right there. If I'm somewhere on the site and then log in... I wind up elsewhere and try to renavigate back to where I was. When an executable refreshes, there is no indication that the software is "percolating" in the background or simply not responding at all. Older archived images and ads seem to have been purged. It feels like there is too much running in the background, with no benefit apparent for the surplus overhead. My internet speed and capacity are high, so the molasses responsivity is apparently on the AMart server end, not mine. Previously, some visitors had been complaining over failed searches. I, and others, recommended narrowing the search. It looks like the new and improved AMart has ~fixed~ that problem... by eliminating a huge amount of history... Entirely! And my old "favorites" seems to have been reset to none.


I would still visit here, especially if I'm wanting to buy via the Classifieds (always the AstroMart strength). I believe that strength comes from the nature of paid membership. Pay some to have access; therefore sellers are generally established and serious, ostensibly identifiable, with history and feedback. And that's a BIG positive. But, otherwise, this new format is well... I am visiting less and less and approaching the "don't even bother" attitude.


Feels like THIS is what happened: The new site software is probably a completely different source? Intent was to comfortably transition the substantial membership over to better experience that would feel similar, but greatly improved. So far, for me, it's disappointing and seems worse than before. I actually miss the old Astromart.  Tom

Ummm... wow... I'm pretty lost, trying to navigate this new format. I first looked here, but not logged in, and wanting to respond. So I logged in and that sent me all the way back to the home page. So, I navigated all the way back to here, again, and clicked on respond and... the history that I wanted to quote disappeared from above, and I'm not about to look for it. So, here goes -->>

Ok, ok, I understand that the old version is no longer supported and Google et. al. are obliquely pressuring AstroMart to heel-to or no longer exist. Fine, understandable. But, at least as I am accessing from this perfectly good Laptop... the overhead on the new site is running Molasses Slow, compared with before. Any time I hit a select button, it's as if nothing at all happened, and then, often a long time later... it finally refreshes... or not. Very confusing.

I'll probably just visit if I'm looking for something used to buy. Other than that... drifting away...

That ~other place~ seems to be running smoothly in the Forums Section, and quite active.

Anyway, thanx for being there, I'll still use Astromart for used equipment.  Tom