TimC,EdK,TomT
EdK brought in 14h? x 17w? framed astrophotography of M31, the (Princess) Andromeda Galaxy, created by Paul Winn...very beautiful. Ed is working on his Losmandy tripod adapter to the Celestron CGEM mount. He will be looking to pour pitch on his Perfect Pitch silicone form soon. TimC says he will want to pour pitch in about 4 weeks for his mirrors, hoping he can do it at the same time with TomW's perfected pitch pouring procedure.
TimC was working on the start of his From The Workshop Note #3. Also carrying on grinding the donated 8" mirror with 500 grit, while talking about the Giant Magellan Telescope mirrors being made at the University of Arizona. Seven 8m mirrors will be placed together to form the GMT. Mirrors are heated to about 1200C to melt the borosilicate, then cooled to about 1000C to resolidify, all the while the 27 foot diameter mirror is spun at about 1RPM to help form a parabolic surface.
The 8" grinding was going well until TimC noticed a scratch on the surface. Possibly some older larger grit bit that was caught behind the tool tiles had come out to leave the scratch? The tool and its tiles were examined from the backside and thoroughly cleaned. A bit more 500grit grinding and the scratch was disappearing. Examining the surface with the 8X loupe only a few internal bubbles (with shadows away from the LCD light source) could seen below the smoothing surface.
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