[sac-forum] FW: Carbon Fiber Experiment

Here is a dialog I have had with an astronomy professor at Kansas University
about a project he began 3 years ago. Interesting possibilities!



Richard Harshaw
Cave Creek, AZ
President, The Saguaro Astronomy Club (2009)




-----Original Message-----
From: Twarog, Bruce A [mailto:btwarog@xxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 8:15 AM
To: Richard Harshaw
Cc: Twarog, Bruce A
Subject: RE: Carbon Fiber Experiment

Hi,
the grant continued until Fall 2008 thanks to a couple of extensions. The
16-inch mirrors
were fine but when the firm that produced them attempted to scale up to 1-m
class mirrors,
technical issues that were minor to irrelevant at smaller scale began to
dominate. In
particular, the larger mirrors exhibited greater difficulty retaining the
correct profile
over time and the mirror surface showed patterns that were a byproduct of
defects in
polishing the mandrel. It turns out that creating a large mandrel with the
correct surface profile
is much more challenging than creating a direct mirror surface with the same
complementary
profile. The mirrors were placed into the telescope but never functioned
adequately enough
for research purposes. We (KU and SDSU) are planning to replace the current
optics with
a traditional 1.25m mirror system - assuming we can raise the funds - since
the telescope
and instrumentation (other than the optics) work fine.

Hope this answers your questions.
Best wishes,
Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Harshaw [mailto:rharshaw2@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Sun 7/5/2009 10:23 PM
To: Twarog, Bruce A
Subject: Carbon Fiber Experiment
 
Good day, Dr. Twarog.

 

I was in the Astronomical Society of Kansas City when you gave a talk to
that group on your carbon fiber optical telescope project you had just
received funding for. I was surfing the web tonight and found the original
grant and noted that it was to run until late 2006.

 

I was just curious-how did the project turn out?  Were  you able to produce
an optically good cast from the mandrel?

 





Richard Harshaw
Cave Creek, AZ

President, Saguaro Astronomy Club


"Heaven wheels above you displaying to you her eternal glories and still
your eyes are on the ground."  

                 -- Dante Alighieri, ?? - 1321

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