Astronomers celebrate mirror casting for Large Synotic Survey Telescope
The effort to build the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope passed a major milestone March 28, with the casting of the telescope’s main 8.4 meter mirror at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory Mirror Lab in Tucson.
Tony Tyson, professor of physics at UC Davis, leads the consortium working to build the telescope, which will survey the entire visible night sky every three nights for 10 years. It will look for evidence of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy thought to make up most of the universe, as well as fast-changing objects such as asteroids.
The telescope will be located on a mountain peak in northern Chile.
In the casting process, 20 tons of glass were loaded into a rotating furnace and heated to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hitting peak temperature — “High Fire” — on March 28. The mirror will keep spinning and cool slowly over several months before being removed for grinding and polishing.
Casting the mirror (1 min 47 sec)
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Andy Fell, producer
