Ad Astra Observatory

Well, the heart of the scope, anyway.

I picked the mirror up at the post office this morning. Nice big box, very well padded inside.

The 2 mirrors are both immaculate. Yes, I saw the chips on the back side of the 13”. That’s nothing; won’t affect the views.

The “spider” is just tragic. I think that was half the weight right there! Looks like I’m in the market for a Protostar or something similar, but this will get me through bench-testing. I’m going to have to replace the mirror cell mounting bolts, but it seems like that’s standard on UOptics cells; I had to replace them on my 8” cell, too. I neglected to measure the exact thickness of the mirror while I had it out, but it certainly is pretty thin. That’s niiice. Gives me hope that I’ll be able to get it onto the G-11.