Re: vibrationally damped
"All of this despite using a massive stone table that was vibrationally damped."
It's all about the base.
Except when it isn't, when the inertia of the base combined with the characteristics of the vibration damping is insufficient to hide the applied excitation from the extraneous external effects, and the signal you wanted to observe is therefore dwarfed by the extraneous effects. OK in your case it wasn't so much a signal you wanted to observe as a movement you wanted not to happen, but the same principle applies.
Hey, it's Friday. Have a great weekend.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
