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"Perfect" Mirrors Cast For LSST

Posted by kdawson on from the billion-pixels-of-goodness dept.

eldavojohn writes "The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (which was partially funded by Gates & Co.) announced a world record casting for its single-piece primary and tertiary mirror blanks, cast at the University of Arizona. From the announcement: 'The Mirror Lab team opened the furnace for a close-up look at the cooled 51,900-pound mirror blank, which consists of an outer 27.5-foot diameter (8.4-meter) primary mirror and an inner 16.5-foot (5-meter) third mirror cast in one mold. It is the first time a combined primary and tertiary mirror has been produced on such a large scale.'"

2 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. No such thing as "perfect"... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... perfection is only a limitation of the measurement process used to find flaws.

    1. Re:No such thing as "perfect"... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But then the question becomes: is measurement at the atom level really good enough? Or is it accepted as good enough only because we can do no better?