Tuesday, March 7, 2006: My 22-inch f4 mirror from Kennedy-Optics arrived today! Here is a picture of it sitting on our front porch where UPS left it. Receiving your mirror is an exciting event in a Dobsonian construction project. Everything up to that point seems like a preliminary, somehow.
The container weighed 92 pounds — I needed Elly’s help to move it inside. We left it in the front hallway Tuesday night. I gave Steve a call letting him know the mirror had arrived. I mentioned I was frightened to open the box. The thought of something happening to my pristine new mirror is not a happy one. Steve told me it would be a good idea to make sure the mirror was still in one piece. I said Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I will open it later tonight. But I didn’t.
I got an email from Steve on Wednesday saying “ Would you just go and open the thing already!!” I new Steve would not be happy until I took a peek (and he is relentless) so after Elly went to bed and Samba (our Rottweiler) was safely lying on the floor in our bedroom, I got out my drill and went to work. I had set up a table in the kitchen and got Elly to help me put the shipping container on it.
It is easy to see Steve has shipped a lot of mirrors. His container is rock-solid and well-designed. Here is a close up shot of the lid alignment mark, which enables the lid to be reattached in its original orientation so the screws line up properly.
I took a deep breath and started removing the screws holding the lid in place. They were 2 or 2.5-inch decking screws, and Steve used a pile of them. One every 3-4 inches on all four sides of the box. There was no way that lid would accidentally come loose. About 20 minutes later I finally removed the last lid screw. Well, maybe it did not take quite that long. When the lid was removed, I found a protective insert made from solid insulation board with black duct-tape covering all edges to prevent insulation material from crumbling loose in the container. Here is what it looked like.
I lifted the insert out and found that the front surface of the mirror was covered with a cardboard disk lined with cotton batting. The disk was taped onto the mirror with 2-inch packing tape.
Here is a close up picture of one of the corners. The 2 by corner bracing is rugged, built to take rough handling in shipping. This image also shows several of the corrugated cardboard bundles encircling the mirror and buffering it the sides of the container. The tab of black tape protruding from the side of the mirror is attached to the bottom of the mirror so it can be easily lifted from the container.
Steve scratched his company name and info about the mirror on the side of the mirror blank. Pretty cool. I carefully peeled the tape off the edge of the mirror working around the entire disk.
I lifted the cardboard off the mirror and had my first look at the optic. Its condition was excellent — no pits, scratches, or surface defects of any type could be seen.
I did see a dusty mark on one side of the mirror. It is maybe an inch long by half an inch wide or a bit less. I blew gently across the mirror to waft away cotton batting fibers (there were only a few) but the mark did not respond to this. I am not sure what caused the mark, and it does not appear to be a surface defect of any type, just a whitish patch. It could be a coating flaw, I guess. I tried to take a couple pictures of it, but imaging the mark is a serious challenge for my inexpensive digital camera.
It will not affect optical performance, of course, but I still would like to remove it. I will check in with Steve tomorrow to learn what he recommends. I wonder if the coating service is going to face the wrath of Steve for this blemish?
Anyway, I carefully repacked the mirror and fastened the lid down. I do not plan to open the container again until I am ready to put the mirror in my scope, which will still be at least a few weeks yet.