mirror & lens making

schmidt corrector plates

A guide to making Schmidt corrector plates using the vacuum pan method.

all about plaster

Data on Hydrocal, Ultracal and other types for making plaster tools.

pitch notes

A number of short items related to pitch and pitch laps.

how not to scratch glass

Rules to live by while grinding mirors.

silvering a mirror

Complete chemical formula and procedures for doing your own silvering.

a foucault tester

Made from scrap and surplus parts, but of the quality you might find in a production optics shop.

foucault data reduction (24kb download)

Version 3.0 (25 Sep 97) of Jim Burrows' program for analyzing foucault data. Includes the Pascal source code.

miscellany

all about eyepiece designs

An overview of the basic concepts and a very complete guide to the various eyepiece designs available.

measuring focal lengths

How to measure the focal lengths of positive and negative lenses and mirrors.

Vignette (22kb download)

Gerald Pearson's Vignette program calulates diagonal size based on field illumination. C source code is included in the .zip file.

atm calculator

A JavaScript calculator for common telescope equations.

eyepiece focal plane positions

Where various popular eyepieces come to focus, also instructions for you to measure your own eyepieces.

a trip to liebmann optical

A field trip to a professional optics firm.

interactive ray tracing (298kb download)

This is an early release of IRT for Windows. IRT is a full capability geometric raytracing package, suitable for development and analysis of both simple and complex optical instruments.

baffling newtonains...

A step-by-step guide to sizing and locating baffles to improve contrast in Newtonian reflectors.

...or not baffling newtonains

An opposing viewpoint for improving contrast in Newtonian reflectors without baffles.