Saturday, April 26, 2008

Seconday mirror covers & pulpit in use

This morning's progress: I added the covers of the secondary mirrors and animated them. When commanded from the pulpit, the appropriate secondary mirror is lowered into position while its covers open. This picture shows this happening for the first Coudé secondary, the one used for the 3 mirror Coudé light path. The mirror is in the process of going down and its covers are opening.

I originally designated this the 2nd mirror for the 5 mirror light path. After an afternoon nap I realized how wrong this was. Both Coudé mirrors have the same focal ratio of f:30. Although not obvious from this angle, the mirror that's halfway down in the picture below is raised a foot or so above the others. As a result, the length of the light path that it reflects is about 9 feet shorter than the length reflected by the lower Coudé mirror. The 3 mirror Coudé light path is shorter than the 5 mirror path, so the upper Coudé secondary has to be the one used for the 3 mirror path. It took me about 20 minutes to interchange their rotation parameters and switches.


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