aerial focusing?

[ic-racer]

Funny I saw this thread. Last night I was doing aerial viewing on my 8x10. I'm nearsighted, so I was getting a great aerial image in the clipped corners. I took the whole GG off and had a good look around. Main problem is you can only see a small part of the scene at a time.

[Nathan Potter]

Nate,

Thanks for your response. I have a piece of hand-ground glass (Steve Hopf's ground glass). So what you're saying is that part of it it can be sand blasted with 600 grit size sand-paper to make a small strip or small circles clear?

dh003i. I think I confused you. The masking against abraision needs to be done on the clear glass prior to grinding. Thus the masked area stays clear while the unmasked area is frosted. What's a bit tricky is to keep the mask (wax or tape) from abraiding away during the grinding operation since it is constantly attacked by the grit along with the glass. Sand blasting is more successful since the impinging particles hit the mask orthogonally so tend not to apply a shear force against the mask.

Since your glass is already frosted you need to defrost (so to speck) a small area to make it clear. This can be done and I think was mentioned above. You need to apply a small drop of clear material that preferably has the same index of refraction as your glass and that will spread out to the diameter desired. It will fill in the fractured frosted area and render it clear in appearance. You'll want the material fairly thin and flat so as to not distort the aerial image. What's the material? I don't know. But I might look at some clear wax; fingernail polish?; crazy glue? Maybe even vinyl alcohol. Possibly someone else here has done this and will offer a suggestion based on real experience.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.