Saint Petersburg Astronomy Club - Mirror Lab

Location

We are looking for a new home
As soon as we have the new location set we will post the location and hours here.

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.

04/12/2012 more

Members

Ralph Craig - Lab Instructor
Allen Maroney - Lab Instructor
Ron Jones - The Figurer
Mike Davis - Casts Mirrors
Dimitri - Support

Friends

James Lerch - Robo Foucault
Matt Terry
Charlie Mullen
Bruce Kazcmarik
Keevy McAlavy

In Memorium

Irv Nadelhaft
Lenny Remetta

04/12/2012 more

Welcome

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.

How to paint the inside of a tube
2005-05-25

Paul demonstrates a device he made out of plumbing parts that allows the easy spray painting of
the inside of tubes.

Two Mirror Graduates
2005-05-21

Well done to Art Ross who completed a 10inch f/5 mirror and Richard Garner who
finished a 10inch f/6.2

2005 Orange Blossom Special with John Dobson
2005-02-15

	src=/images/2007/dobson_allen.jpg> John inspects Ralph's and Allens work. It was fun to discuss the finer points of mirror grinding with one of the masters.
John autographs the 2005 Mirror Lab Rafflescope.

VENUS TRANSIT 2004
2004-06-08

Allen Maroney held a digital camera up to a 26mm Plossl on a 3.1inch refractor

OBS 2004 Images
2004-02-24

Large Aluminizing Chamber ONLINE
2004-01-04

Total Lunar Eclipse
2003-11-08

Saturday
November 8th, 2003
Total Lunar Eclipse

A movie of the event is available:
AVI (1.7MB) | href=images/movies/Eclipse_11-03_Divx.avi>Divx (1 MB)

We were at the Science Center most of
the evening. The clouds made it difficult to see during totality but before and afterwards it
was good viewing.

Lunar pictures by James Lerch

Laser Interferometer goes online
2003-10-04

Radio Telescope ’sees’ first light.
2003-10-04

Mars Closest Approach in 60000 years
2003-08-03

Mars Closest Approach in 60000 years

On the night of Tuesday August
26th Mars made its closest approach to the Earth in over 60000 years. Mars was only 34,646,418
miles from Earth at 5:51am EDT (early Wednesday morning).

src='images/marsimage4_2.jpg'>
On the night of closest approach. Picture imaged with a cheap $20 camera held up to the
eyepiece.

2003 Date	Location	Time
August 16 Saturday	Gulfport Casino	10pm -1am
August 22 Friday	Science Center	9:30pm -1am
August 26 Tuesday	Science Center	9:30pm -1am
August 29 Friday	Gulfport Casino	9pm -1am
August 30 Saturday	Science Center	9pm -1am
September 5 Friday	Gulfport Casino	9pm -1am
September 6 Saturday	Science Center	9pm -1am
September 20 Saturday	Gulfport ArtWalk	8:30pm -12am
September 26 Friday	Science Center	8:00pm -10pm

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