[Laser] Parabolas. HMMM...

[Phil Lefever]

At 07:01 PM 8/9/02 -0700, you wrote:
>The microwave portion will be easy, I see the problem with the light end of
>things, we'll see how that works out!  I have seen it do work to 1/2000"
>easily, of course a parabola would need polishing beyond this for the light
>region...

For Microwave use the parabolas would have to be pretty large. The
smallest "useful" size for say 10 GHz is around 19". Lower bands
will require larger and larger dishes.

For light/LASER use of course the reflector could be pretty small
say between 4" to 8". The surface accuracy will have to be decent
but not anywhere as accurate as a telescope mirror. We aren't
concerned much about aberrations, just light gathering. On the
other hand with modern imported telescope mirrors becoming
very inexpensive these would be an easy way to gather and
focus light. Today 6" mirrors are less then $100 and 8" models
are well under $200.

73

Phil, KB0NES

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Phil Lefever                    C8-SP
Burnsville,MN                   XT-10
Ham Call : KB0NES               80WV & C102