Mirror Lab

Today our Camera Club toured the Mirror Lab at University of Arizona. The Lab is located under the stands of the football field. It fabricates the world's largest astronomical mirrors. This mirror contains nearly 50 tons of glass.

This is the polishing machine working on the 8.4 meter mirror for the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) that will be installed in Peru. Polishing will take nearly two years and accuracy to within a human hair in 25 miles.

Images will be captured on a 3200 Megapixel Camera, with a sensor nearly two feet square. LSST data will be freely available to anyone with a computer.