Subject: why not get a spare tertiary mirror?

From: Stupendous Man

Submitted: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 17:41:27 -0400 (EDT)

Message number: 2 (previous: 1, next: 3 up: Index)

  Heidi Newberg and I were talking about the 3.5-m today, and she
mentioned an idea that sounded promising: why not purchase a 
second tertiary mirror?  This "spare" could be cleaned/aluminized
frequently and swapped with the other tertiary, so that a clear
mirror was always on the telescope.  If, for the sake of argument,
the tertiary is currently reflecting 80% (or less) of the incident light,
replacing it frequently with a mirror reflecting 90% of the 
incident light would yield an increase of > 10% in overall
throughput, for all instruments.

                               Michael Richmond
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