Our Founder
Paul McNabb founded the mirror lab in 1997 in order to create the best amateur telecopes possible.
Inch for inch our mirrors surpass store bought or commercial grade scopes.
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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Last call for the mirror lab building 2025-01-07 |
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| Left is the last photo of the mirror lab before being bulldozered. Right is a Google Earth view of the area with the new holding tanks and the yellow area of where the lab was located. The Science Center, which remains, is at the bottom of the image. |
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Paul working on his 16" scope 2024-11-30 |
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| This is a flashback photo of Paul gluing up the mirror box of his 16" Dob. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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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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