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Article: TESTS TO BEGIN ON MIRRORS FOR HUGE TELESCOPE ENGINEERS USING A RADICAL DESIGN, UNTRIED METHODS IN BUILDING SCOPE
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- July 13, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1987 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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ASTRONOMY
This week, in an optical shop in Lexington, precision testing
will begin for the first of 36 mirrors that will form the heart of
the world's largest optical telescope, a behemoth so sensitive it
could detect the flame of a single candle as far away as the moon.
When the $84-million W.M. Keck telescope becomes operational
on a Hawaii mountaintop in 1990 -- what astronomers call "seeing
first light" -- it will topple the famous Hale telescope on Mt.
Palomar, Calif., from its 42-year reign as the world's leading
telescope. (Hale is no longer the largest. A Soviet telescope
finished in 1976 is bigger, but because of mechanical problems and
unfavorable weather has never ...