LSST High Fire Event
The LSST primary/tertiary mirror experienced a successful High Fire over the weekend of March 28 & 29th, 2008, reaching a peak temperature of approximately 1165ºC (2125ºF). (See this video [MPEG] taken inside the oven over high fire). This event is the critical first step in fabricating the key optical components of the LSST, a unique wide-field survey telescope expected to see first-light in 2014 from Cerro Pachon, Chile. The LSST mirror will now anneal and cool gradually to room temperature over the next 100 days in the slowly rotating oven of the UA Steward Observatory Mirror Lab, and will be removed for grinding and polishing in mid-August. More images are to be added as time allows.
Mirror Lab Director Roger Angel,
The National Science Board's Steven Beering,
LSST Director Tony Tyson,
Purdue Physicist Ian Shipsey,
University of Chicago Cosmologist Rocky Kolb and
LSST Project Manager Don Sweeney pose in front of the
spinning oven in which the LSST primary mirror is being cast.
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Charles Simonyi talks about his experience as a space
tourist at the event dinner. In the foreground is a scale model
of the LSST telescope, a gift to Mr. Simonyi in appreciation of
his fund's generous contribution to the project.
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Purdue Physicist Ian Shipsey, The National Science Board's
Steven Beering, LSST Director Tony Tyson and
LSST Project Manager Don Sweeney pose in front of a life size
graphic of the LSST camera.
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George Helou and LSST system engineer Chuck Claver pose
in front a life size graphic of the LSST camera.
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(Image credit: David Harvey for the LSST Corporation) |
Steward Observatory Mirror Lab Director Roger Angel discusses
telescopes with Charles Simonyi on the polishing floor.
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A group of guests observe a mirror being polished. |
Don Mcarthy shows a group of Tucson Area Physics Teachers
around the Mirror Lab. |