Build your own Astronomical Telescopes

             The Reflecting Telescope   alt_11.htm

		 Mirror Design Overview

		 How Big a Mirror?

		 Focal Length and F Number

		 Materials

		 Time

                    Mirror Making   alt_12.htm

		 Precautions

   The Mirror Workshop

		 Rough Grinding

		 Rough Grinding Large Mirrors

		 Fine Grinding

		 Polishing

		 Pressing the Lap

		 Correcting

		 Mirror Testing

		 A Quick Test after the Mirror is Coated

                    Mirror Testing in Detail    alt_13.htm

   Some Basic Optics

             Spherical Aberration

             Testing Amateur Telescope Mirrors

             Distance Between the Radii of Curvature 
                      of a Paraboloid being tested at its Radius of Curvature

             Perceptual Aid in Understanding the Foucault Test

             Ronchi Test at the Radius of Curvature

             The Ronchi Program

             The Foucault Program

             How Well Must a Mirror Be Corrected?

             More Mirror Testing Methods

             Reading the Curve of the Mirror with an Eyepiece   

             Using Mirror Edge Diffraction while Mirror Testing

             Summary

             For Those Who Want More Information About Mirror Testing

             The Caustic Test

             The DAFT Test

             The Null Lens

             The Surf Program

             Strehl Ratio

             Professional Mirror Testing

             Foot Note

             References

Mirror Polishing    alt_14.htm

   Figuring a 'Perfect' Mirror

   Diagnosis of our Mirror's Problems

   Choosing Mirror Testing Methods

   Logging the Mirrors Figure

   The Reference Sphere or Parabola

   Mirror Polisher's Log

   The Mirror Log

   Polish 1 and 2

   Polish 3 and 4

   Polish 5 and 6

   Polish 7 through 14

   Polish 15, Thumbing

   Polish 16, Full Size Lap on Top

   Polish 17, Cool Mirror, Hot Day

   The Sweat Band and Mirror Polishing Temperature

   Polish 18 and 19, The "I" Stroke or Oblating Stroke

   Polish 20, 21 and 22, The Weegee Lap

   Polish 23, The Smoothing "W" Stroke

   Polish 24 and 25, The Weegee Lap and the Mini Weegee

   Polish 26, The Parabolizing Stroke

   Polish 27 Log, A Combination Stroke

   Summary of Figuring

   Masking the Mirror Edge

   Prescriptions

   Parabolizing

   Reducing Over Correction

   Smoothing Without Doing Much Else

   Reducing a Turned Edge

   Reducing Zones

   Reducing Dog Biscuit and Ripples

   Combination Strokes

   Inventing New Methods

   Rework on a 17.5 inch Pyrex Blank

Mirror Coating Care    alt_15.htm

   Mirror cleaning 

   Beyond mirror cleaning

   De-coating in preparation for recoating 

   De-coating

   Coating  

                    Building the Telescope   alt_21.htm

   Overall picture                  1A

   Base and Tube together   2A

   Tube breakdown               2B

   Base breakdown               2C

   Diagonal size                     3A

   Spider and diagonal          3B

   Building and Installing an Eyepiece and Camera

   Mirror cell design             4A

   Dobson Mirror Cell          4B

   Helpful Suggestions

   Collimation - Aligning the Telescope

   Step by Step

   Finding and the Finder

                Basic Astronomical Optics and Wave Theory   alt_31.htm

   Waves

   Conic Sections

   Waves or Rays

   Optics Design Using Rays

   Optics Design Using Waves

   On Axis Aberrations

Spherical Aberration

Chromatic Aberration

Astigmatism

   Off Axis Aberrations

Astigmatism

Coma

   Detectors

Our Eyes

Film or Photographic Plate

The Charge Coupled Device (CCD)

   The Cassegrain Telescope

   The Schmidt Camera and the Maksutov Cassegrain

   The Spectrograph and the Diffraction Grating

   Seeing through the Atmosphere

          The Video Camera

          Adaptive Optics

The Sine Wave, Logarithmic and Electronic Calculations   alt_41.htm

            A Quick Review

  Observing Ocean Waves

  Tying Mechanical Waves to Electrical Waves

  An Electrical Power Plant

  Simulation of a Transmission Line Using Finite Elements

  Impedance, the Effect of Resistance and Reactance

  The Quarter Wave Match

  Polarization

  Harmonics

  The Mathematical Coincidence of the Chromatic Scale

  Communication Bandwidth

  Signal to Noise Ratio

  Specifying a Wave

The Ary Disk and Diffraction   alt_51.htm

  The Diffraction Pattern 

  The Daytime Terrestrial Telescope

  The Light Bucket 

  The Space Telescope 

  Encircled Energy 

  The Point Spread Function 

  The Modulation Transfer Function 

  Good Seeing 

  More About Testing At The Eyepiece

  Misalignment 

  Tube Currents

  Spider Diffraction 

  Pinched Optics

  Spherical Aberration 

  Turned Down Edge

  Zonal Aberrations 

  Rough Surface

Links on the Internet

Aluminum Coating

Printed after January 1, 2007.

Recent program notes are at:
http://home.covad.net/~alcoat/CD_info00.htm#Recent_program_updates

Warrantee

There is no warrantee of any kind on this program. This program is sold 'as is'. The user must determine the accuracy, appropriateness and safety of all procedures described. Persons purchasing this disk may receive a replacement CD disk if the original disk is found to be damaged.

Notes given below are not intended to reduce the limitation of warrantee given above.

This disk includes some third party shareware programs.
It is recommended that if possible the user download the programs from their original source which is always given.  Third party software on this dick is not maintained or updated.