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Mirror Box
We always start building a telescope with the mirror box. This is the single most important piece and needs to be build carefully and precisely. Extreme caution and attention to detail goes into the mirror cell system. This is what holds the mirror in place as you swing the telescope from target to target. The mirror is polished and figured to an extremely fine tolerance on the order of millionths of a millimeter across the surface, therefore it is imperative to properly place the supports such that the weight is distributed equally, any misalignment of contact points will distort the image causing undesirable effects at the eyepiece. We use very strong Stainless Steel for our mirror cells, mounted on thick walled steel rungs which provide ample thickness for the collimation bolts for fine tuning optical alignment in the field.
 Starting to realize the magnitude of this beast. Two mirror box rings from 1.5" x 1.5" x .25" 6061 T6 Aluminum. Outer dimensions of 35.5" x 35.5" |
 The Stainless triangles which comprise the 27 point mirror cell sitting on the Luaun 30" dummy mirror. |
 My right hand man performing the structural dynamic analysis on the 1/4" Aluminum angle box. |
 Here are 3 dummy mirrors I made while constructing the 10", 18" and now 30". |
 Kelly likes it. |
 Mirror box pivotted on the rocker box. |