Astronomy
My 10 inch Mirror with a 1/48 P-V Wavefront Error @ 550 nm
There was a phone number for an optician
at the university for me to call if I wanted to. I called the optician who
again congratulated me on the production of such a fine mirror.
He was most impressed with both my unusual choice of mirror diameter and focal
length, and the mirror's exceptional high quality exceeding the diffraction
limited criterion by a factor of six.
Configuration
My choice of lens diameter for the time, was
a little unusual as most home made mirrors being made were 6" in diameter not
10". Being a serious amature colour photographer, where the colour films of the
day were 12 ASA (ISO) and 24 ASA. I wanted a very fast mirror. The wider
the mirror, the more light it would collect. Six inch mirrors only had an LG or
Light Gathering Power of
(3 * 6) = 324 X. brighter
than the unaided eye. The next size up for blank optical disks was 8". Eight
inch mirrors have an LG of (4 * 8) = 1024 X brighter
than the unaided eye. This was more than triple the LG of a 6" mirror, and
I was sold. However I wanted a mirror with a Clear Aperture of 8" meaning I
would have to go up another step in size to 10" to get that much Clear Aperture.
