Just ran across this sweet piece of optical glass...

[Gadget]

A 75mm x 3mm First Surface Mirror.

This mirror was part of an RGB projector beam-alignment system for high-end, full-motion flight sims. (I have access every third Saturday night to about 20 sims in one building, near DFW Int'l, including a Bombardier V twin bizjet, a KingAir 350 twin turboprop, a Cessna Citation X twin bizjet, and many, many other SUPER sweet airplanes! These pods get a quarterly FAA performance-curve inspection. If they don't match the real plane exactly, the sim goes offline until they can make it match. I can log PIC hours in these things!)

Anyway...I digress...back to the optics. It has two VERY small defects (scratches) one less than .5mm, the other less than .2mm. Both are within a half inch of the edge so they don't interfere with the middle of the mirror too much. Other than these two small defects, the surface is PERFECT! It's attached to half of a gimbal mount.

This is my first in-person encounter with one of these, and I've never seen anything so smooth and clear and reflective. In-freakin-credible!

Here's the gimbal mount...

Got a freebie on it, too, from a good friend who works at the Sim place!! Another fine gadget acquisition!

FWiW,
Gadget

 

[Escher]

Your last pic made me cringe... never lay a FS mirror down like that... Sorry to be "that guy"...

It looks as if its a bit dirty...

The coatings are super sensitive... if you decide to clean it, read up on cleaning telescope optics... no dry direct contact, no "lens cleaners", etc...

Distilled water, cotton balls, and the purest alcohol you can find. Never apply pressure when cleaning. You only drag the cotton ball over the surface using its own weight, and only under a stream of water. You can use standard tap water to start, but then you flush the surface with distilled water and then finish with alcohol.. Sit the mirror upright to air dry and it will be spotless.

This is the method you use to clean the big 10" or larger newtonian mirrors in telescopes.. Quite stressful the first time you do it, lemme tell you!


Very cool snag - quality optics are not cheap!

 

[Gadget]

No need to apologize. It won't happen again. :yh:
It was pretty dirty! I just gave it a good cleaning per your instructions, except for the distilled water (all I had was 0 ppm RO/DI and all the denatured alcohol I could rinse it in.) and jeez...you were right, it WAS dirty! I didn't realize how bad. After the rinse in DA, it dried right in my hand. I love that stuff.

Thanks for the heads-up about how to clean it.

Kev

Your last pic made me cringe... never lay a FS mirror down like that... Sorry to be "that guy"...
It looks as if its a bit dirty...
The coatings are super sensitive... if you decide to clean it, read up on cleaning telescope optics... no dry direct contact, no "lens cleaners", etc...
Distilled water, cotton balls, and the purest alcohol you can find. Never apply pressure when cleaning. You only drag the cotton ball over the surface using its own weight, and only under a stream of water. You can use standard tap water to start, but then you flush the surface with distilled water and then finish with alcohol.. Sit the mirror upright to air dry and it will be spotless.
This is the method you use to clean the big 10" or larger newtonian mirrors in telescopes.. Quite stressful the first time you do it, lemme tell you!
Very cool snag - quality optics are not cheap!