A standard hole punch was used to create a bunch of 6mm holes in a piece of paper. Electrical tape over most of those holes was used to hold the paper on a mirror. This keeps the paper as close as possible to the reflective surface.
The arms of the original chair were getting in the way of either the incoming or reflected light, so I switched to an armless chair. The mirror is aimed by turning the chair and by changing the tilt of the mirror. The paper under the mirror gave a slick surface which made it easier to make fine adjustments than it was with sliding on the fabric.
Also note the flap on the bottom. When opened, a much brighter but much fuzzier image is sent to the screen. This aids in aiming.
A close-up of the mirror. Note that the hole for the reflected light is really a double hole -- one for the incoming light and another offset by a few millimeters for the reflected light heading off in another direction. This is necessary because the reflective surface is behind the mirror's glass. A better setup would use a front surface reflection.
A view from the garage toward the mirror. The telescope was 26 meters long.
A view from the mirror into the garage. The screen is at the far side of the dark garage (not visible in the darkness). The screen was just a large piece of paper taped on the wall. I would aim the mirror in the right general direction, then move the paper to the appropriate spot. As the Sun moved, the image moved upward on the wall. I kept moving the paper until it got too close to the window, then I'd run out to adjust the mirror to point back close to the floor.
I initially tried placing the screen on a car at the near side of the garage. Too much ambient light was coming in the doorway, so the image was not visible. With the screen at the far side of the garage and the cars taken out, light coming from the door was greatly reduced; and light coming from the windows behind the screen was not a problem. Of course, this also let me add a few more meters to the length of the telescope.
Last updated: Sun Jul 7 10:52:18 PDT 2002