Re: Question about telescope design.

markzoom wrote:
If we can work out how to grind the edge or a strip of glass ***
accurately, a lot of astronomy could be done at a fraction of the
cost.

Today, if you wanted to do that, you'd grind out an ordinary paraboloid
mirror, and then cut out a strip. So unless you wanted the strip for
some other reason, you'd prefer the entire mirror (especially as cutting
the strip would distort the edge, and you'd lose light-collecting area).

This is not really a design issue; the design would work (but not, as
far as I can tell, deliver any advantages in resolution or brightness
over an equivalent cost ordinary mirror), but your "if" above is a very
big engineering "if." If it were that easy, someone would already have
done it, since--as I mentioned earlier--this design has been proposed
before.

--
Brian Tung <brian@xxxxxxx>
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
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