LARGE AMATEUR TELESCOPE

1.8 Meter Aperture

A GROUP 70 project

Welcome to the year MMV home page for the Large Amateur Telescope (Group 70) project.

Zen Telescope project (just kidding)

The mirror is finished!

More news
After many years of building machines, grinding and polishing; the mirror is in it's box.
To save money, we moved from our San Jose (CA). Our new site, (at least temporarily) is at Elliott Labs in Fremont California (We are very grateful for the space) . At this time, we do not have a phone or mail address, so email is the best bet for now.

This brings us to the next stage of the project,

* STEEL*

fabricating the mirror cell is the next priority. Then we can work on the tube or base. (so it will start to "look" like a telescope.) This may mean that our 24" secondary optics must wait. This may mean that we will go to first light as a prime-focus telescope. (probably with a CCD camera at the focus).

back to optics

Other scenario include having some steel work "farmed" out and the polishing team work on the secondary. Regarding tertiary: The tertiary will need to be an elliptical flat at least 10" by 14" (or more, depending on the desired field of view).
Classically, working on this requires having three identical pices of glass, thus ending up with 3 ea. diagonals! We may decide to purchase instead.

A Very brief history:

Our mirror blank was cast in November 1938 by Corning, as a back up blank. After some interesting history, it found its way to Tasmania , Australia.

In July, 1988 ‘the glass’ was listed in "Sky & Tel." (72" glass, make offer).

That November, Group 70 Inc. was founded to buy the glass. Two years Later, Group 70 began cutting and grinding. (it took that long to obtain the glass, build the grinding machine, A-frame, etc.) Grinding took place over the next five years, (some delays were due to earth quakes, move and break downs ) Polishing/ figuring begun in ’96.. (we were shut down for five months this year, due to another move).. We are now working up to 3 days a weak in order to finish the mirror. (We now have financial deadlines)

The completion of the mirror will mark the beginning of steel work and the other Optics.

Group 70's new home is in Fremont California.

You are welcome to visit our shop. Please email (see end of page)

*Local links*

Is this the SRFT? (An ad; optics for sale, by Group70)
F.A.Q.s
About Group 70
Reciprocal web sites.
Photo gallery
Polishing Team . (62 Kbytes).
click here for Daniel Wisehart late photos of our work.

This page is registered with Yahoo (/Science/ Astronomy/ Telescopes/Amateur/Telescope_Making/). where you will find a lot more telescopes.

Questions, Please email Dan Zuras prez2007(at)group70(dot)org

This web page marked up by Rick Powell
Questions regarding web page, email webmaster(at)group70(dot)org

O.K. why the silly email address? See Shenanigan free web page for our secret code.