Our 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.
Where the 19th Century Art of Mirror Making Meets the 21st Century
The Saint Petersburg Mirror Lab is a small band of dedicated mirror grinders and telescope makers living in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. We offer a mirror making class for interested persons. We strive to create the best mirrors our home brew technology can muster. This includes robotic foucault testing and laser interferometry.
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12.5" Mirror Cell Refurbishh 2023-04-21 |
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| This is an overdue refurbishing of a 12.5" mirror cell that belonged to one of our lab instructors before he passed away. The truss cage was rebuilt and we will be working on a new mirror and rocker box next. The mirror was recently recoated and it has a good polish and figure. More to come on this. |
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Mike P's eyepiece case 1 2023-03-07 |
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| It begins | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Mike P's eyepiece case 2 2023-03-07 |
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| It progresses | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Mike P's eyepiece case 3 2023-03-07 |
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| Ta Da! | ||||||||||||||||||||
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OBS 2003 Raffle Scope Winners 2023-03-07 |
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| Darla and Peter Flynn won the 12.5" OBS Raffle Scope. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Allen separating the mirror from the cell 2023-03-07 |
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| This mirror is going to be realuminized. It had huge gobs of glue holding it to the cell. Don't do this to your mirrors. They must be free to adjust to temperature changes. |
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Center marking a primary mirror 2023-03-07 |
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| Ralph, right, and Chris center marking Chris's mirror | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Mirror Grinding Demo at the OBS 2023-03-07 |
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| Mike showing Scott the proper grinding stroke at the 2023 OBS | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Collimation Class at the 2023 OBS 2023-03-07 |
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| OBS 2003 Collimation Class with Ralph showing secondary mirror rotation. Ralph and Allen showed traditional collimation tools, like the sight tube and auto collimator, laser collimation and the digital OCal video collimation. |
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16 and 8 inch mirrors 2022-09-18 |
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| We recently had a half dozen mirrors and mirror blanks donated to the club. Here are a couple of finished and coated mirrors. These should make awesome telescopes. |
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