SPAC Mirror Lab construction page

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.

Lab Members

Allen Maroney has completed three mirrors in the lab between 8 and 18 inches. Allen is also buiding a second robo foucault tester based on James design.

Ralph Craig is a lab instructor and has made mirrors from 6 inches to his recently completed 16 inch f5 mirror.

Charlie Mullen ground the mirrors for two years worth of rafflescopes but now has moved on the clear skys of New Mexico.

James Lerch built our robo foucault tester and in house aluminizing chamber as well as a laser interferometry testing setup.

Ron Jones AKA the figurer is about the best mirror maker this side of the mississippi. You can see things in his 8 inch mirror that would impress a takahashi devotee.

Lab T-Shirts Available

Lab Graduates

Bruce and his
English Yoke

Irv Nadelhaft

Lenny Remetta

Keevy McAlavy

Paul Krisle

Matt Terry

Telescope Software
Newt
Ray tracing program for determining all required dimensions for a newtonian reflector. (New Website)

Plop
Program for designing mirror cells.

Observing Software
Celestia
3-D interactive simulation of the solar system and beyond.

JupSat95
Plots the jovian satellites.

Lunar Phase
Shows all the phases of the move and more.

Links
tampabayastronomy.com
SPAC news site

Stellafane
The birthplace of amateur astronomy.

Mel Bartels Website
Amateur Astronomer and innovator.

Stardate Website
Good overall observation site.

Southwest Florida
Astronomical Society
A nearby Astronomy club.

The Planet Table
Interactive table of planets and moons.

Telescope Construction Odd Ideas and Tidbits
	Telescopes built by lab graduates and other club members
	Mirror Lab Rafflescopes Each year we raffle off a lab buit scope at our annual OBS star party.
	Portable Grinding Table schematic (pdf format) Allen Maroney came up with this nice set of plans for a portable grinding table. Its a three legged design with a flip top grinding platform. It's very stable and colapses down flat for transportation.
	How to paint the inside of a tube Paul McNabb created a very simple gizmo to help spray paint the inside of a cardboard tube. He was helping Art with his dobsonian tube and decided he was tired of getting covered in black paint every time the inside of a tube had to be sprayed.
	Dobsonian Equitorial Platform Lab member Paul Kristle has built a motorized platform that will allow dobsonian style scopes to be able to track like equitorial mounts. The platform was demonstated and tested on the 2003 rafflescope.
	1420 Mhz Radio Telescope Using a donated 2 meter satellite dish and various electronics purchased inexpensively off the internet we built a portable radio telescope. It is tuned to 1420Mhz aka the neutral hydrogen line and has detected the radio galaxy cygnus A as well as molecular clouds in the milky way.
	Super Cheap Plywood Mirror Cell Built on the fly at the 2003 OBS this mirror cell was build of plywood and three old AC radiator vanes as clips. Basically it's two circles one bigger than the other. The top one is the diameter of the mirror and is held in place by three machine screws with springs attached to the larger circle beneith it. The larger circle is just smaller in diameter than the tube to which it is screwed in place. Wing nuts on the machine screws provide for collimation.
	How to Pack your Mirror for Shipping Shipping off your finished masterpiece for coating is a little scarry especially if it isn't packed right. Here are instructions with pictures for how to make a very good mirror shipping box.