Florida Fringe
Festival III
Telescope Workshop and Star Party
Friday, February 17 - Sunday February 19
Drewville
(hanger/runway/field) Florida (25 miles north of Cape Kennedy)
(Followed by the
Winter Star Party February 20 - 26, 2012 in the Keys)
Contact: Andrew
Aurigema
eosraptor@gmail.com
Friday
Feb 17 will be a play day for making mirrors, cleaning
optics, setting up telescopes, loading the vacuum chamber,
eating, and getting ready for the StarParty on Saturday. If
the weather holds we will set up the scopes and check out
the sky Friday night. Bring your mirror and we will test it
or work on it if you want to. My shop can accommodate a
mirror up to about 60" dia.
Saturday Feb 18 will be all day playing mirror
making, testing and demonstrations. We will have mirror
stripping, polishing, laser interferometry testing, ronchi
and Foucault testing demos as requested. Vacuum coating of
aluminum on mirrors and CnC table use as the day allows.
Demo of the new 0.65 meter StarStone mirrors and hopefully a
look at the meter class mirrors to come. Saturday night 6:00
PM the shop closes and the food is served. Scopes are the
order of business till the stars go to sleep.
Sunday Feb 19 is recovery, packing up to head to
dinner out and the
Winter Star Party in the Keys.
Accommodations
There are
5 acres of front yard / parking so RV's and tents are
welcome. There are no RV facilities. Last year I ran
electrical out to a few of our campers (on an extension cord
and that seemed to work well for running lights and laptops.
There are hotels in the area if you are coming from out of
town and don't want to camp out.
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Florida Fringe Festival 2010
All in all the Florida Fringe Festival '10
was a blast (see pictures below of the
mirror-making fun). We had about 40 people
show for the evening festivities, tons of
food, a pick up band ( playing StarWars ),
kids from 2 to 82 ( Great Grand Ma Sola was
teaching us the constellation names in
Spanish....and she knew every one of them
too), a bond fire with shmoors and hot
cocoa, and 9 scopes on the field. We got to
see the new Lockwood 22" f/3 starlight
eating machine a week before it was unveiled
at WSP. 2011will be even better. We got
lasers and meter class mirrors to play with
:_))))))))) |
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Left
to right Mike Lockwood, Dave Davis, John
Pratt & Andrew Aurigema second row ( in
front ). Russ Jacoy is taking the pic. The
gang took a well deserved break having just
finished building up the little polishing
machine (seen center) at FFF '10. |
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State of the art in StarStone mirror
grinding design. That is "pickles" the
friendly grinding machine. FFF '10 was the
kick off for the Starstone mirror factory
build and this is the grinding mechanism
that became Grinder #001. And yes, that is
a real pickle jar and wet beach sand I am
grinding with. That mirror turned out quiet
nicely as later pictures show. |
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After much grinding and polishing and
sipping of cold beer, it was decided that
the little polisher had to be pressed into
service. So this is our 5 minute wooden
pitch lap that was made by Dave D and Andrew
A and remade by Mike L several times until
we sent him inside to get food. Then we got
some polishing done. |
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This is the world famous Dave D. and his
newly "gorrila glue" bonded thin shell
mirror on PPG foamglas. This mirror later in
the afternoon went into the kiln for some
reason ( that I cant remember ) and promptly
had a bad day. But for a while it was
ground on by Dave D with his aluminum ring
lap and some beach sand. There was no end of
experimental stuff being tried that day in
sunny Florida. |
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John P and Mike L were taking in as much
Sunny Florida as possible having just driven
down from central Illinois and escaping feet
of snow. Not sure what the thing is getting
bonded (most likely something Dave D was
working on) but the yellow thing under it is
the new Grinder #001 (not yet ready for
service). |
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The gange trying to explain ronchi testing
to Andrew A ( not seen ). Left to right is
Russ J setting up his ronchi tester, Mike L
looking on and not at all sure any of us are
sane, Rory Duncan ( late to the day but he
brought 3 telescopes and more beer so we let
him stay) looking confused, and John P
agreeing with Mike L that none of this
kludge engineering is going to make ronchi
lines ...let alone straight ones. |
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Well, we did make ronchi lines and they were
straight. That is Dave D trying to show me
( Andrew A) how to use a ronchi tester. The
thing in the background is my 0.7 meter RC
Robotic homemade research scope. Once we
stopped playing with simulated starlight we
dragged all the scopes out and made some
real starlight fringes. |
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The little
StarStone prototype did make straight lines
and we polished it more and installed it in
a telescope. Engineering note.... never put
four telescope builders in a circle and ask
what is the best way to install an
experimental mirror into an experimental
telescope. Left to right is Mark Femmininio,
Russ J, Rory D, and Mike L. As you can see
Mike was keeping the mood light.
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This is the rarely seen and never before
imaged "Pine Needle Nebula" in the southern
constellation of Florida. What were you
expecting from a hyper experimental ( first
of its kind ) foam glass mirror that was
ground with a pickle jar and beach sand and
installed in a borrowed telescope by a group
of aerospace engineers. The fact it made an
image at all is amazing. |
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