Saint Petersburg Astronomy Club - Mirror Lab

Location

We are looking for a new home
As soon as we have the new location set we will post the location and hours here.

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.

04/12/2012 more

Members

Ralph Craig - Lab Instructor
Allen Maroney - Lab Instructor
Ron Jones - The Figurer
Mike Davis - Casts Mirrors
Dimitri - Support

Friends

James Lerch - Robo Foucault
Matt Terry
Charlie Mullen
Bruce Kazcmarik
Keevy McAlavy

In Memorium

Irv Nadelhaft
Lenny Remetta

04/12/2012 more

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.

Early 2008 Lab Update
2008-04-30

We haven't gone anywhere- just working on mirrors and haven't had time to post anything new to the
website.

Allen made an href=http://www.telescopelab.com/images/early_2008/SPAC_Lab_04-2008.htm>updated image page from
the last few months for your enjoyment.

From James Lerch...
There is a new place to get coatings: href=http://www.opticalmechanics.com/reflective_coatings/about.html>Optical Mechanics They
charge $10/inch with complete overcoatings. Very professional and quick turnaround time. If you
don't mind going without the overcoating James will still aluminize your mirror for $5/inch but he
now recommends Optical Mechanics.

From Ralph:
We just had two more mirrors finished.
Herb Conner 10" f/6
Pete S 8" f/4.5 for club scope

Recent Mirror Completions
2007-11-17

September:
Julio Fernandez completed a 10inch f/5.84

October:
Lynn Joiner 10inch f/6
Peter Rimshaw 10inch f/6
November:
Joe Colontonio 14inch f/5.5 (special thin quartz mirror)

Another Mirror Completed
2007-05-17

Jim Hunter finished his 12.5" mirror last weekend. I think it is a little under f/6. Came in at
1/8 wave. RC

Joe starts work on his second mirror
2007-04-29

Joe is starting work on his second mirror using a fused quartz 14 inch blank. Here is a picture of
his first telescope made at the lab. It's a 10 inch f/6.

Fused Quartz Mirror Blanks for Sale
2007-04-23

Recolabs has around 100 fused quartz mirror blanks for sale. 12.5 inch .8 thick goes for $160 and a
14 inch .8 thick for $200. These are available through ebay.

From one of their auction
pages: "The thermal properties of quartz are 2 times better than Pyrex, it holds a better surface
and it is stronger than Pyrex."

Contact Chris at recolabs for more information
ctribe@recolabs.com or call 503-661-1163

Eric Finishes his second mirror a 12.5 inch
2007-04-02

FYI, Eric finished his mirror today. It tested 1/6th wave or better on all axes tested. This
frees up a table if anyone wanted to work on a mirror???? RC

Mirror Lab Video for Charlie
2007-03-31

Here is 17 minute video of how Robo Foucault works. Allen and Ralph describe how to test a
mirror.

Watch it in Internet Explorer (wmv) or href=mirrorlab2.wmv>download it (35MB)

Website Update
2007-02-25

The Mirror Lab website has been updated. There are still lots of things to be done with the website
but the majority of pages have been updated. We've added a new feature href=index.php?page=sagitta>a sagitta to focal length calculator.

Charlie is leaving for the clear skys of New Mexico
2006-12-23

Charlie who is pictured
of Charlie polishing his 20inch mirror has moved to New Mexico. He'll have to contend with snow
drifts in the winter but at least he'll have some very good viewing. We'll miss you
Charile.

Ginger completes an 8 inch Mirror
2006-10-28

Ginger Tiling has finished figuring her 8 inch mirror. It has an f/ratio of f/5.6 and was completed
on October 28th. Congratulations.

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