who am I

It is curious how and why one becomes fond of a discipline like telescope making.
I suppose that every passion we develop draws its remote origins on the times of our childhood. As for me, I spent those times in a village of fishermen and farmers, where they were concerned with their ingenious activities: boat making, net repairing, artesian well digging, upwind fences building to let spring bosoms become fruits. I well-knew tools like hammers, shovels, shaves, acute knifes, saws, pincers and likes, since everything was done on the street, and I happened to use them too.

I enjoy when recalling those careless times with evening games lasting till night, with delightful fragrant feelings as I crossed arbors and kitchen-gardens, while up in the sky I could admire the Milky Way … and how many stars! At home they called it “the Creation” while at school they taught “the Universe”. But what was there above, how remote were those bright points? Which was their connection with us and the ours with them? Those innocent questions went out again as I was mature.
Looking for answers I made my first mirror and pointed the telescope to those far worlds, so I opened wonderful things I had never known before: moon crates, Saturn rings, different colors of the stars, galaxies, star groups. One thing leads to another, so I built a lot of mirrors and discovered my singular flair for making them.
These early experiences convinced me that the large amount of time required for their making must however lead to achieve excellent quality images. Excellence that comes from a number of items: correct materials, method and application. On the other hand, working can go while listening good music and reflecting upon quite everything. So beyond their goodness these mirrors have, in my opinion, also a soul coming from my hands; to make them, one must be in exact tuning with what he is doing in order to understand what’s right and what needs any correction.
It’s a heavy job to make a parabolic mirror.
At the beginning you are handling a piece of glass. You have a project in your mind and a corresponding focal length. You examine the glass to discover where to start from, then you begin to rough-hew it, first with coarse abrasives then with finer and finer grits, looking out for any mistake. When you realize that something is wrong you must restart from the beginning.
When eventually you come to polish it and give it a paraboloid shape: how many days of work, what backache, how many galls on your sore hands! It is the last that I do (I always say that). But when I go back looking at it I feel satisfied. So I take its dimensions, I check it and estimate its quality tracking in the check report: no cracks, fine polishing, no mamellonages.
It’s a excellent mirror really!

Forgetting my tiredness I think at the time when it will be coated with aluminum and how it will work into a telescope. My opinion is very good so I hope that its future owner could have a confirm from an interferometric test. It’s a great satisfaction knowing that it performs 1/45 lambda RMS (Root Mean Square) and that the MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) curve fits into the theoretic one.

I have not introduced myself yet: my name is Dario Vianello.