Here are links ot most of the programs that I know about and have used
to help design and build telescopes. Most are free, and are written by
dedicated and helpful amateurs, whom I wish to thank for making their
knowledge and skill available to everyone.
Aberrator is an excellent piece of software
which can be used to predict the appearance of star and
planetary images in the presence of different kinds of
aberrations. If you want to star test telescopes, I
recommend getting Dick Suiter's book "Star Testing
Astronomical Telescopes", and download this program.
Very cool.
We use the Ronchi test for most of our rough testing at
the workshop, and Mel shows how you can use it to do more
serious testing. He's also got a rather nice little DOS
program which he uses to predict Ronchi patterns. Read
the page, get the software.
A very nice, very slick program for doing Ronchi testing.
Requires a bit more cpu power than the simpler program
above, but it is very nice and easy to use.
Software for performing the knife edge or Foucault test.
You can even get source code. There is some other good
stuff on this page too, especially nice stuff on mirror
cells.
In addition to the Ronchi program, Mel has written other
bits of useful software to calculate the size of diagonals,
convert between astronomical times and coordinate systems,
and of course to control his computer controlled telescope.
He also has links to some other nice programs that others
have contributed. Check it out.
Supporting a mirror isn't too tricky if your mirror is
small and relatively thick, but many people are making
mirrors thinner and bigger. When you do so, figuring out
precisely how to support the mirror can be tricky, and
this program is designed to make it simple. Terrific bit
of work.
All materials on this website are Copyright 2001, Mark T.
VandeWettering. Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute
these files for non-profit, personal use.