As I write this in early 2003, a new telescope is currently under construction in Arizona. It will use two mirrors that are each made from the world's largest single casting of glass. The mirrors were made at the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. My wife and I were given a private tour of the lab in January 2003 while both of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) mirrors were still in the lab. These mirrors are 8.4 meters (27.6 feet) in diameter which was quite an impressive sight. With both mirrors sitting next to each other, we were able to get a feeling for how enormous the final telescope will be.
The mirrors are made with a honeycomb structure behind the front optical surface. By doing so, the amount of glass and therefore the weight of the mirrors are significantly reduced. The honeycomb structure is made by using special ceramic forms in the furnace when the glass is melted. The glass flows between the forms which create the hollow sections of the honeycomb.
I took this photograph with my Olympus OM-3 camera with a Zuiko (Olympus) 180mm f/2.8 lens set at f/11. The exposure time was 1/2 of a second. I then scanned the photograph with my Nikon LS-2000 film scanner and processed the image in Adobe Photoshop. Due to the type of lights used in the lab and the spectral response of the Fuji Provia 100 film I used, the color was very yellow with virtually no information in the blue channel. Since the mirrors are white I decided to present the image in a black & white format. Photograph by Rick Scott.
Updated: 27 January 2003