140601 TimC

On 6/1/2014 10:57 PM, Tim C wrote:

Greetings all,
We are scheduling a workshop for this week, Tuesday, June 3rd. Bill, would you please have the east gate open. If any of you need to drop off bigger items to the workshop, you may bring them down and then park back In the Museum parking lot till the workshop ends. We will try to help bring your projects back to your cars at the end of the class.
As usual, we meet at the Broder Building across the creek at the Museum of Natural History. We normally meet from 7:30-9 pm each Tuesday.
Way back last year Javier received an 8 inch mirror as a donation. This person only requested we show him our finished scope. I am delighted to say I am now in the final polishing stages of this mirror. I changed the focal length of this mirror from a much longer length to a much shorter one. In fact, it is shorter than we originally thought. It is now an f/3.92. We targeted an f/5.5 but found it to be shorter. As such you would think we are disappointed but, no we are pleased. This will be a fine scope. We have received some parts members have donated to us for our project. After a few set backs, I am finally polishing and looking now to the business of designing and building a Dobsonian type reflector for our mirror. As John Dobson passed away just a few short weeks ago, this will serve as a fine testament to his memory. I hope you will join us by participating and putting this together. 
In the meantime, there are many projects coming to fruition. What is fascinating is that all of our projects are in a finishing stage of polishing and figuring. It is an exciting time for you all to see the many nuances polishing and figuring has to offer the mirror making process. Coinciding with this, some of our articles in the newsletters will indeed deal with the testing of these optics. This is where the rubber meets the road- where the theories meet reality. We will take these pieces of borosilicate glass, polish and coat them with aluminum, to reflect and magnify starlight received from eons past and deem to understand them. Not interested in that? Well, maybe you may find answers to questions you have in astrophotography. Let's say you have an urge to understand how to image stars in the night sky, or current events taking place in the night sky. For instance, in early July asteroids Vesta and Ceres will appear to come close in space. Want to image them? We have experts to tell you how.
 Please feel free to come join us.
T