2015-16 Telescope Making Class
Session 5 held on February 6, 2016

Crowd Scenes

A full, enthusiastic, and engaged class indicates that ATM is alive and well at Stellafane.

2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Crowd Scenes Facing into the bar area of Fletcher House where the polishers congregate.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Crowd Scenes More polishing. Why do they congregate here? It's close to the coffee pot.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Crowd Scenes The pitch is flowing, and so is the chatter.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Crowd Scenes Another shot of the polishing addicts. It's addicting because it takes so long.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Crowd Scenes The grinders are in the big conference room, trying to keep their grit away from the polishers.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Crowd Scenes We start grinding in the big room when the class is young. It's pretty crowded at first, but people graduate to polishing pretty quickly.

Candid Camera

Action shots of the many people doing Maker Science today.

2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Not *that* kind of wedgie, silly. Rick & Ken discuss wedge reduction in refractor lenses.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera From Paris and NYC, Antoinne is working on polishing his mirror.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Phil is dispensing free advice to Dr. Kris on her 12.5" f/5 project. The mirror is a bit thin and there is some thought to making a backing plate of plaster to provide support and thickness.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Glenn is figuring the parabola on his latest project, an 8" mirror.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Andy is polishing diligently and should be "polished out" soon. He drives up all the way from PA to attend class.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Figuring this fast Cassegrain primary has been an adventure for Fran. Correction seems to come and go as the weeks go by. Fran recently returned to a sphere using his Mirror-O-Matic machine, figuring it was time to start from scratch on the parabola.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Putting the finishing touches on his parabola, Reade is at that interesting point where "just go around the barrel one time, doing a specialized stroke" leads to perfection. We really do strive for perfect mirrors in the class.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Keith pressing. He reconditioned his pitch polisher today and is *this* close to nailing the elusive parabola.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Ken is our award winning Webmaster: check out www.stellafane.org if you haven't already. Jay is his trained monkey and any errors you see on the website are his. In this photo, Ken is trying to pound some coding sense into Jay. He isn't successful.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera The boys are checking out either a) an antique dial indicator or b) a part for a new Steampunk Tophat creation. We're not sure.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Glenn is evaluating his parabola at the business end of Dick's Autocollimator. His mirror is being tested in double pass at the focal length using a ronchi screen. Glenn is making smooth steady progress with this mirror.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Dave is unstoppable in class. He is everywhere and touches every project we have. Here he is doing a little precision pitch channel maintenance on Keith's lap.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Just out of the mold, a fresh pitch lap ready to rock and roll. George has pressed it out and done about 15 minutes of work with it, preserving the overhanging facets at the edge of the tool to make a slightly oversized lap. There is plenty of debate in the class about whether to oversize or to bevel the lap edges.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera We can't get enough of the guy. Here he smiles at a just finished mirror as it comes off the Autocollimator rig.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Stephen, Dick, and Kris enjoy some soup amid the chaos. George brought a loaf of home made bread that was finished to the last crumb.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Stephen & Dick enjoying a bit of a break between work sessions.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Phil uses a flashlight and a magnifier to inspect the fine ground surface of Kris' mirror. The pits should be of a uniform size and distribution before moving on to smaller grits.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Dick bends out of the line of fire as Phil's little Takahashi H-alpha solar refractor blasts away. We didn't get any shots of the refractor outside doing solar observing, but the instrument is ridiculously nice to use.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Armed with a re-poured pitch lap, Stephen is working hard.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera Hogged out to her desired sagitta, Holly is making short work of the remaining grits she needs before joining the polishing crew.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera A dedicated hard worker, Jessica is polishing away. Currently applying to grad schools, we're going to miss her when she goes away.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Candid Camera George has also moved out of the grinding stage and is putting his new pitch polisher to work.

Lap Work

Pouring, channelling, pressing pitch laps in the Fletcher House basement.

2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Lap Work Keith was getting some ring shaped zones in his mirror which were caused by a "centered" pitch lap. Here he is altering the lap channels so that neither a tile nor a channel junction is in the precise center. This should eliminate the dreaded zones.

2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Lap Work Keith doesn't mind a little pitch stuck on his hands. No gloves for him!

2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Lap Work New lap, big smile! Now get back to work.

Finishers Finishing

Reade and Tom proudly displaying their finished mirrors with mentor Phil.

2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Finishers Finishing This is Reade's second completed mirror, destined for a telescope he will give to his grandchildren.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Finishers Finishing Phil, Dave, and Dick have been the gurus of the figuring sessions in class this year.	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Finishers Finishing Tom has been working patiently through the figuring process on this beauty. We forsee Stellafane Awards.
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Finishers Finishing	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Finishers Finishing	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Finishers Finishing
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Finishers Finishing

Miscellania

Unsorted and unlabelled leftovers just too nice to toss out. Enjoy.

2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania
2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania	2015-16 Telescope Making Class Session 5 held on February 6, 2016 Miscellania