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.

  Dew heater test circuit
2015-04-29
This is the low voltage cutoff test of the new lab dew heater circuit. It has dual controls and
will cut off power to the heaters at and below 10v to save the battery. It uses a programmed PIC
16F88 microcontroller as the brains.

  Distorted pitch pattern
2015-04-29
The distorted pitch lap pattern was caused by the BVC mirror sticking to the lap after the pour.
When we finally separated them this was the result.

  Joey and Brent Hilker join the ATM community
2014-08-27
Joey and Brent are a few hours into grinding a 10 inch mirror here. They have perfected the
teamwork to keep the grit crunching sound at the optimal levels.

  Paul tuning up the Meade 16 inch focuser
2014-08-27
Paul really got into this project. He stopped the trunnions from slipping on the tube and fixed the
focuser. Clearwater Fundamental Middle School has a monster telescope ready for the sky now.

  George Fatolitis cleaning 16 inch Meade mirror
2014-08-27
George brought in a Meade 16inch Dobsonian telescope from Clearwater Fundamental Middle School. The
mirror was coated with dust and the mechanics of the telescope need a bit of work. After a couple
hours of work it all came together and George left with a beautiful telescope for sharing he night
sky with the kids.

  Ralph, Tom and Mike polishing mirrors
2014-08-27
We had three polishers (two figuring), two grinders and repaired a 16inch Meade Dob for a local
Middle School this week. It was busy at the Mirror lab!

  Brad finishes his 8 inch mirror!
2014-07-06
Brad finished his 8 inch mirror Saturday. It is extremely well polished and has a one seventh wave
figure with beautiful edge. Congratulations Brad!

  Eighty-five pound pitch lap press
2014-07-06
Sometimes the pitch lap needs a little help getting back into a shape that matches the mirror. The
mesh makes nice micro channels. After removing the weights and mesh we usually press again for a
few minutes flatten out any pitch lifting caused by removing the mesh. We also like to keep the
polishing room between 80 and 82 degrees F.

  Tom nears final figuring
2014-07-05
Tom is in the final stages of polishing. His 8 inch mirror has a slight (~200nm) turned down edge
and mirror on top with a short center over center stroke will correct that quickly.

  Mike with his 12.5 inch light weight mirror
2014-07-05
This shows the light weight 12.5 inch mirror batter. Mike cast the mirror and has been perfecting
the honey comb pattern.

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