Michael, Your research is much appreciated. I'd like to mention something I found that might be of interest. In your message, you say of a solid mirror lateral support:
Cons, All the weight of the optic and solid cell frame are on the 3 collimation bolts. Bottom line folks we are dealing with weight and gravity.
I ran across an article by Nils Olof Carlin in the BigDob Yahoogroup forum. In message #8551, he mentions using ball bearings for edge support, and posted a picture in the Photo section. The name of the picture is "Ball Bearing Edge Support".
What interest me is that using this method, the weight of the mirror would not have to be on mirror mount, and be transferred to the collimation bolts. The ball bearings could mount direct to the frame assembly.
The positioning of the bearing might need to be adjusted to the center of the mirror after the initial collimation takes place. The bearings would then allow the minimal adjustments necessary for final collimation.
Has anyone else other than Nils tried this arrangment? I'm wondering if there would be any mirror distortion with the weight of the mirror resting on only two small points on the edge of the mirror.
Comments appreciated.
Brad Cottingham
Cons, All the weight of the optic and solid cell frame are on the 3 collimation bolts. Bottom line folks we are dealing with weight and gravity.
I ran across an article by Nils Olof Carlin in the BigDob Yahoogroup forum. In message #8551, he mentions using ball bearings for edge support, and posted a picture in the Photo section. The name of the picture is "Ball Bearing Edge Support".
What interest me is that using this method, the weight of the mirror would not have to be on mirror mount, and be transferred to the collimation bolts. The ball bearings could mount direct to the frame assembly.
The positioning of the bearing might need to be adjusted to the center of the mirror after the initial collimation takes place. The bearings would then allow the minimal adjustments necessary for final collimation.
Has anyone else other than Nils tried this arrangment? I'm wondering if there would be any mirror distortion with the weight of the mirror resting on only two small points on the edge of the mirror.
Comments appreciated.
Brad Cottingham
