Oldham Optical:  News & Miscellaneous

June 2009 - New Glass?

In mid 2009, Schott have introduced a new glass that has possibilities for larger mirrors. Its makeup is similar to Suprax, but it is available in sheets up to 1m wide. Depending on the cost, - which we think will be about twice that of Suprax/Pyrex, - it may be very useful for mirrors in the range say 400mm to 1000mm in diameter. See http://www.schott.com/supremax/english for more details

February 2009 - One Of Santa's Little helpers

This is Derek. As you can see from the photo, in the run up to Christmas he could be one of Santa's little Elves getting all the presents ready for the big run on the night of December 25th. He has obviously forgotten to take his work clothes off when this picture was taken.

Apart from Derek, the other item in the picture is a 600m Diameter Zerodur disk which has just arrived in the workshop.

It's all set to be converted into a big Cassegrain primary. When this one is finished we expect it will be heading off somewhere a long way east of here.

January 2009 - Happy New year!

We are still not finding time to do much with this news page. We could claim pressure of work of course.

However we have introduced a new page about the use of red laser diodes as light sources for testing astronomical mirrors, and how to make a red light source cheaply for yourself. The picture adjacent is a copy from that page.

Mirrors and Cassegrain sets are in production of course. Most of the output is currently going overseas. We also have an appointment to give a talk at the Bradford Astronomical Society this month, so there has been some preparation to do for that.

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