Welcome
Where the 19th Century Art of Mirror Making Meets the 21st Century
The Saint Petersburg Mirror Lab is a small band of dedicated mirror grinders and telescope makers living in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. We offer a mirror making class for interested
persons. We strive to create the best mirrors our home brew technology can muster. This includes robotic foucault testing and laser interferometry.
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Hartness Turret Telescope at Stellafane
2024-07-12
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The Hartness Turret Telescope in Springfield Vermont at the Stellafane Convention for amateur telescope makers. It was completed in 1910. Ralph is checking out the internal workings of the turret. |
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Under the Dish
2024-07-10
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The lab gang a while back under a private satellite dish. This is set up in the owner's back yard. It's for sale now on Facebook for $100K. You must pick it up in person. |
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Paul cutting out a focuser hole
2024-06-10
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Paul uses a Dremel to cut out a hole before mounting a 2" focuser on the telescope tube. |
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The Robo Foucault Tester using a USB interface
2024-06-10
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The updated Robo Foucault tester (RTAFT) testing a mirror. This update uses a USB interface to the computer via an Arduino. It also uses a small USB camera. More information about it is here: https://www.allenmaroney.com/allen/RoboUSB/Robo_USB.htm |
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Radio Telescope Flashback
2024-04-30
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Keevy with his radio telescope at the 2004 OBS back in the Hickory Hills era. |
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Brad working on a mirror
2024-02-16
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Yep, this mirror is finished. Every once in a while something happens that even super glue can't fix. This one went back into Mike's kiln. This is a flashback from 3-30-2019. |
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Moving the Robo Foucault to USB camera and motor control
2023-06-13
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Ralph and Allen are working to update the Robo Foucault tester with a new camera platform, a USB camera and replacing the parallel port motor controller (left) with a USB controlled off-the-shelf Arduino with a motor shield (right). We are the process of testing it on Windows 10 and 11 and comparing the results with the Classic Robo set-up. Updates to come on this project. |
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12.5" Mirror Cell Refurbishh
2023-04-21
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This is an overdue refurbishing of a 12.5" mirror cell that belonged to one of our lab instructors before he passed away. The truss cage was rebuilt and we will be working on a new mirror and rocker box next. The mirror was recently recoated and it has a good polish and figure. More to come on this. |
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Mike P's eyepiece case 1
2023-03-07
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It begins |
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Mike P's eyepiece case 2
2023-03-07
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It progresses |
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