Saturday, December 27, 2008

O marks the spot

I marked the centre of 6" primary mirror of Mom's telescope. I needed this to do a proper collimation.

While the mirror was out of the cell (for cleaning), I traced around it onto a piece of paper. I then carefully cut this circle out of the paper. I folded it in half. And folded it in half again. I cut out the centre of the circle, eyeballing in about 4 or 5 mm from the centre tip.

I asked Mom for a white, self-adhesive eyelet paper reinforcement. She first offered me some clear ones. Tempted, I suspected it would be too hard to see, declined. She directed me to her computer desk but I couldn't find said items. She groaned out of her chair, looked in another spot, and located them. I peeled up the edge of one.

I carefully placed the clean side of the paper atop the mirror and lowered in, using tweezers, the white ring. I gently tacked it down and double-checked the position. Pretty good.

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Ironically, I believe it was my request for the paper reinforcement that drove Mom ultimately into the kitchen, causing the "Mirror Cleaning Incident."

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