Want to see what a telescope mirror looks like fresh out of the oven?

[thewayne]

Pretty cool shot if you ask me!

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=825&template=Today

Comments

[silveradept]

Is that the actual mirror, or is that like a mold that they'll use to construct the thing, because it seems a bit weird to have people sitting on a mirror that probably had to be manufactured within very tiny tolerances.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's the actual mirror. It's subsequently polished then aluminized, so the fact that they're sitting on it right now is no big deal.

[silveradept]

Ah, okay. Would hate for it to turn out that the highly expensive mirror got a scratch somewhere that caused the whole thing to have to be melted down and reforged, because people wanted a picture.