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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A 10 inch mirror goes from a blank to aluminized in a week! 2002-09-21 |
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| Due to an unfortunate event the 10 inch mirror for the 2003 rafflescope was ruined. James Lerch and Paul Kristle worked around the clock in shifts to regrind and polish a 10 inch mirror from scatch to finish. |
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Our Vacuum Aluminizing chamber comes online 2002-09-07 |
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| Build from parts scavanged on ebay James Lerch has created a vacuum chamber that will coat (aluminize) mirrors upto 10 inches in diameter. Positioning the heating elements to ensure an even coat was one of the difficult parts. |
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We snap pictures of asteroid 2002 NY40 2002-08-18 |
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8 inch Rafflescope winning from OBS 2002 2002-02-28 |
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