Posts Made By: Chrstopher Tribe

I am looking for a good light shroud to block out back light. See Photo of my scope, it needs to be light as I want to keep the weight down but strong enough to hold up in the wind. Just like to know what others have used.
Thank You Chris Tribe

Over 1 year to build Carbon Fiber telescope body
First light at Oregon Star Party and WoW I love it.
14.6” F4.5 11 lbs fused quartz primary
3.1” quartz secondary looking for 2.6” to replace it with.
Feather touch focuser
31lbs scope body

I need help testing so I thought this might be a nice way to help some one out. I will give a 6 inch by .8 inch quartz blank that is flat on each side and clear to the person that can do the best testing of it. So if you are willing to test it and post your findings good and bad and you have the ability to test it I will send it to you. You will get to keep it after testing. No strings and I pay for shipping. So please tell me what you are going to do to test it and why you can do the best job. I will pick a winner with the help of all of the people interested in this in 10 days. If you have anything to add to make this as fair and unbiased as possible please let me know. I have posted this on CN as well and was able to define this a bit more.
I have had some good comments so far; Let me add a few things. The blank is flat on each side like a window but I do not think it is flat like a secondary mirror but could be made like that. I have found it to be .0005 or better using a micrometer so it should be flat enough for testing. What I would like to know is how good is the quartz to make into a lens or use for optical glass. Some tests I have know of are shadow graph method, Polariscope testing, interferometer test, and Zygo. I do not know how optical flat the quartz will be but I think it might be very good for use as transmission quality and the person that can do this kind of testing will get this blank to keep. I am very happy at how much every one wants to help out for the good of everyone.

You might try Swayze Optical this is his home page but with a mirror this small it might be better to mask it. http://www.europa.com/~swayze/ he dose a good job and L and L in CA is a good coater and spectra in FL is another good coater. Good Luck

There is a lot to say about a light scope, it is easy on the back, sets up faster, and you take it more places. I love my 14.75 quartz mirror and my scope with finder and focuser is just 31 LBS. I can see many things clearly in just minutes after taking it out of the car or trailer while others are waiting for hours some times to get there mirror to cool down. The best telescope is one that is used and it is a personal preference as each scope fits each persons need as to what they want out of it. So the question of down sizing or not should be to ask your self what do you want out of a telescope and how will you be using it, make a list of pros and cons.

This is a link to some testing that was done on the free 6" quartz blank.
A big Thank You for this information.

see link
https://sec.hevanet.com/hevamm/cgi/mmstdol.cgi?BACKGROUND=http%3a%2f%2fbi%2dstaff%2ebeckman%2euiuc%2eedu%2f%7emelockwo%2fmirror_making%2fq6_test%2fq6_test%2ehtml