Posts Made By: Steven Gorkowski

I just picked up this scope and seen that the spoting scope
has a screw missing. I was thinking of contacting Meade for
the part . I am also open to any other vendors like ones
that support this site.

Hi I will be finishing my Foucault tester using a green super bright led. I want to verify that it works I have no other mirror to test it with other than the one I am working on.

Thanks

Hi I have a few questions on collamination using the laser test.The first thing I noticed I had to align the laser. I would like to thank the group for talking about that problem.Mine was OK but when I changed the batteries it changed they must not have tightened the screws tight.I put some finger nail polish on each screw to help hold it in place on the laser.I have a 8 inch starfinder and picked it up used and I think I picked it up from him is it was way out of collamination. I marked both mirrors center and then leveled the cell. I really did it different than the web site because it didn't work for me. The first thing was to align the secondary so the red laser light hit the center of the main mirror. My understanding is the beam should bounce back to the point that came from in the eye piece. Is this true? If this is true how do you know it has hit that point. My laser has no feature to see that. The way I did it was punched a 1/4 inch hole in a piece of paper and ran the rack on the focuser all the way up and put the paper under it so the laser light went into the hole in the paper and adjusted the collimation screws on the cell until the returning beam didn't hit the paper and thru the 1/4 inch hole. This worked OK for my focuser that had a gap but how do others that have no gap do it? I plan on checking how close it is using the star test tonight. I would be very greatfull of any help.

Thanks

Steve

I am almost done with my tester. I was looking around on the web and some tilt. Do I need to make it tilt? I would like to make it double as a ronchi tester also. Can anyone tell me of a site that tells how to do that? I also added the picture of my tester. It has less than .001 inch slop in the rails. It repeats the reading perfect each time. So I think I have it working good enough now.

Thanks for all the help

Steve

Hi everyone

I just finished my first mirror it's a 8 inch. I sent it out and had a Beral coating put on it.It cost me $35 + shipping they said 4 weeks turn time. I feel that is dirt cheap for a 91% coating 96% coating is $105. I would have that done but I am starting on my 12.5 inch mirror and will have the 96% coating done on that. I feel that the mirror is the heart of your scope and dont want to cut corners to save a few bucks.I know silver tarnishs fast and I would think a 96% coating would match or beat a silver coating. If anyone has a coating that goes over silver to stop the tarnish I would like to see that coating. Always interested in things like that.

Steve

I finished my 8 inch mirror and would like to thank everyone especially Mark for answering my questions. This is what makes the web a geat place.

Thanks

Steve

How do you apply glue and apply velvet to a long tube. The tube is 64 inches long and 9 inches diameter.

While everyone is talking about drilling what about 7" diameter hole in 1/2 aluminum plate. Hole saws go to 6". I also don't wish to spend lots of money on tools.

Thanks

Steve

I picked up a 16" f4 mirror 3" thick. It needs to be recoated. It's shape is a sphere and looks like it has a bit of a turn downedge less than 1/4 wave and maybe 1/4" wide. I think it would be too fast to figure as a parabola. So I was thinking of regrinding it to f5. I have only ground small mirrors one 8" f7 and a matched pair of 6" f8 mirrors. What should I do with with this mirror? Thanks for your help.

The EPs I use on my 8" f7 newt are:

Rini 30mm
UO 12mm Konig
UO 9 mm Ortho
Barlow 2.8 Klee OPS

Steve