Stabilite, Inc. has developed a superior mirror blank technology, “Stabilite”, that greatly improves an optic’s performance. The Stabilite name is derived from two prominent features of our technology when compared to conventional monolithic and other cellular mirrors - (1) they are thermally and dimensionally Stable, and (2) Lighter in weight providing enhanced utility.
Utilizing a combination of advanced cellular design, fusing techniques, process techniques, our technology combines high quality materials with customized design to achieve the best blanks available today up to 6+ meters. One of the keys to our process is the ability to scale up. Other cellular mirror designs break down as you increase in diameter, processes take much longer to manufacture and are much more expensive with long kiln runs taking over 6 months. Our complete process takes weeks not months.
When combined with our NIST traceable testing capability, including testing surface angstrom roughness in our standard production runs, our optics will easily outperform a standard monolithic mirror blank regardless of material.
Our cellular mirror technology have the following characteristics:
Stability and Lightweight
- Stabilite mirrors are far more thermally and dimensionally stable than conventional monolithic or other cellular mirrors.
- Stabilite mirrors are typically lighter in weight providing enhanced portability compared to conventional monolithic mirror blanks.
Manufacturing Time
- Stabilite’s complete manufacturing process takes weeks not months. Other cellular mirror designs break down as you increase in diameter, processes take much longer to manufacture and are much more expensive with long kiln runs taking over 6 months
Materials
- Stabilite mirrors use Schott Borofloat 33 as our primary material allowing us to make high quality blanks with superior characteristics. This material makes dimensionally stable blanks, which can be figured to high degree of accuracy with a low surface angstrom roughness.
Equilibration
- Stabilite mirror’s cool-down time reaches equilibrium much faster than the monolithic or other cellular mirror blanks. Other materials equilibrate for several hours or are unable to reach ambient temperature. Stabilite reaches ambient temperature more quickly and maintains equilibrium during subsequent temperature changes.
Cellular Design
- Stabilite’s cellular design consists of a flat back plate and a concave front plate separated and reinforced by fused ribs of the same material and thermal properties. The back plate can have a central perforation to facilitate additional cooling with a fan.
- Stabilite’s cellular design results in significantly stiffer blanks, thereby eliminating the use of extreme measures during fabrication. In addition, these stiffer blanks are more rugged and hold up well to the stresses of grinding, polishing, figuring, testing, coating and mounting. Other cellular mirrors have a reputation to be difficult to work because they are not stiff enough to figure properly, leading to problems including quilting or print-thru.
- Easy Workability - The faceplate and back plate thickness and shape provides for high performance and easy workability. The flat back eases manufacturability and mounting.
Radiation Characteristics
- Stabilite’s cellular design employs an open structure allowing dramatically greater circulation proportional to the surface area. Our design results in better equilibration than found in solid blanks or cellular mirror blanks using closed structures that can't circulate air as well.
- When Stabilite mirrors are installed in a telescope, its equilibrated mirror does not hold heat, nor does it continue to radiate heat into the light path. This is a primary problem with other blanks and low-expansion glasses. Even with zero-expansion ceramic glasses, blanks act as a heat sink for most of the time it is in the telescope.
- Stabilite mirror’s cellular design results in a larger radiating surface area. Our cellular mirrors radiate heat from the front and back of both plates, as well as from the interconnecting ribs, while having commensurately less volume to retain heat. The ratio of radiating surface area to volume in our mirrors is several times greater than conventional blank or other cellular closed cell designs. In those mirrors, unequal thickness of the mirror blank from the curve (where the edge is significantly thicker than the center) causes non-uniform radiation from the surface. This distorts the final image, as the majority of the mirrors surface is not equilibrated. Radiation into the optical path distorts the mirror’s ability to form a near perfect image. Even with near zero expansion ceramic, these ceramic blanks do not address the issue of thermal equilibrium.
Performance
- Solid thick mirrors (near zero expansion or other) experience degradation in "local seeing" (turbulence just above the mirror’s surface due to a temperature difference between the mirror and the air). Other mirror designs do not cool off properly without introducing temperature-controlled air to each cell due to closed cell structure. Stabilite mirrors are far less affected by “local seeing” than other mirrors. Rather than an occasional stunning glimpse of an object, the image is "unperturbed" most of the time, as well as uniformly better all the time. Star images are finer, planetary images display more stable contrast. In short, you can see the difference, and it is dramatic. All else being equal, (i.e., accuracy of the primary, secondary, support and collimation), Stabilite mirror’s far exceed the performance of conventional mirrors. The difference can be plainly seen!