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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Ed Popko
Date: 2022 Mar 3, 05:29 -0800
Francois,
Your design and build looks great. With good leveling, you will find super results. And if you take a round of sights, slight leveling errors will cancel out.
I had built something similar and have had excelent results ( http://fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx/Tripod-Mirror-Artificial-Horizon- EdPopko-apr-2015-g31098 ). Two things to be aware of. First, be careful with sun shots. Eye protection is important since the mirror is reflecting the full blast it's easy to find yourself looking directly at the reflected sun. Second, when shooting evening stars, the mirror will slowly fog over as condensation forms due to changing temperature differences as the evening cools down. Backyard astronomers know this problem well and use low temperature heating collars or some other means on their telescopes to prevent condensation forming on their lenses.
Ed
