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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Brad's Copper Clad Telescope 2018-12-14 |
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| Brad covered his telescope with a thin layer of copper sheeting. Now he is using some copper strip to cover the seams. Here he is starting with the with the seam that goes the length of the telescope. That will be followed with strips covering the seams that wrap around the circumference of the telescope. |
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Dave Grinding 12.5 Inch Mirror 2018-11-25 |
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| Dave grinds his 12.5" mirror while Paul (left) and Bill offer their opinion of his technique. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Glass Floor Tile Becomes 8 Inch Mirror Blank 2018-11-10 |
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| Mike bought a case of clear glass floor tiles and he used his kiln to make a test 8 inch mirror blank out of one. |
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Brad refinishing his telescope 2018-11-10 |
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| Brad is smoothing his altitude bearings before refinishing them. His scope should be well tuned before the Orange Blossom Special (OBS) Star Party in January 2019. |
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Pauls Drum Shell Telescope Update 2018-11-10 |
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| Paul with the help of Mike is cutting a circle out of some Baltic Birch plywood to fit his 16 inch drum shell telescope. During the test fit he looks pretty pleased with the results. |
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Bath Interferometer 2018-05-10 |
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| Paul McNabb built a Bath Interferometer and lab members have begun
experimenting with a mirror that was finished using the Foucault tester. The test uses a laser, beam splitter and a couple of lenses to create fringes from the mirror's shape. An image of these fringes is processed by a program appropriately called 'Fringe' that creates a 2D color topography of the mirror showing high and low areas relative to the perfect parabola for that mirror's diameter and f-ratio. |
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The 8" f3 Mirror is coming along 2018-04-08 |
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| This is a lab staff project and we are taking turns working on whet will become a 8" f3 mirror. Ron (left) is hogging it out at about the 152 thousandths depth with a goal of 166K. Right is a close up of Ralph working on it with the used 80 grit becoming mud around the tool. We finished the day right on the depth and we will be moving to 120 grit next week. |
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Paul's drum shell 2018-02-18 |
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| Paul is using a drum shell for the mirror box. Here he is preparing to cut the shell shorter. The shell is on a sled over Ralph's table saw. The square plywood is used to prevent the shell from moving sideways on the sled. The shell was rotated while the saw ws running. This was a three man operation. The amazing thing was that it worked and made a beautiful cut. |
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Deep Core Samples 2018-02-03 |
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| The optical lab gang often enjoys science that diverges a bit from telescope making. Lately Geology and fossil hunting have been popular. Here are some deep core samples from Manatee County. |
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Mike's 12.5" Cast Aluminum Mirror Cell 2018-01-18 |
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| After casting the 12.5" honeycomb mirror with pin holes for a mirror cell Mike cast an aluminum cell using the lost foam method. The floatation cell uses felt pads and heat shrink tubing to protect the mirror from direct contact with the aluminum. |
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