Traditionally, instruments for astronomical telescopes are built in Aluminium plate structures, but with the increasing demand for complexity and consequent increase in mass (e.g. the instruments for Very Large Telescopes (VLT) and the future eXtremely Large Telescopes (XLT)), lightweight structures of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) become attractive. CFRP-structures give higher stiffness per unit weight and are less sensible to temperature variations. As an example the performance of a CFRP lattice structure for the ESO VLT X-shooter instrument is compared with the present design of the Aluminium.
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