Liquid mirror telescopes - Present and future

Abstract

The work done with liquid mirrors at Laval University is briefly reviewed. The concept appears sound. It is argued that almost any type of astronomical observations could be carried out with liquid mirror telescopes. As an example, it is suggested how spectroscopy could be implemented on small and large LMTs. Some technical considerations relevant to liquid mirror telescopes are briefly discussed. It is argued that, because the advent of very cheap zenith LMTs should decrease the cost per photon by two orders of magnitude, it could bring about a major increase to the global collecting area of optical telescopes. Telescope time would become far more available than it is now, providing us with more data and allowing greater experimentation. Far more observers would also have access to large telescopes.

Liquid mirror telescopes as cosmological tools

“…The basic concept has been discussed by Borra (1982). The surface of a rotating liquid takes the shape of a * Paper based on lecture given at the workshop on the Topology of the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe held at Lawrence, Kansas, 1988 April 26-29. parabola, and the relevant physical characteristics of liquid mirrors can be obtained from equation (1),…”

“…The extragalactic strip is defined as the strip of sky having galactic latitude greater than 30°. A figure in Borra (1987) shows the regions of sky accessible from zenith telescopes at various terrestrial latitudes.…”

“…To study the large-scale structure of the universe we basically count faint objects and thus are limited by counting statistics; therefore arises the need for dedicated very large telescopes. Liquid mirror telescopes (LMTs) should be ideal tools to study the large-scale structure of the universe because the technology promises to give us very large telescopes at low cost (Borra 1982(Borra , 1987. The outstanding limitation of this type of telescope, that it can only look at the zenith, is not a major handicap for cosmology.…”

Observing with liquid mirror telescopes - Evaluation of two observing seasons

“…They also discussed some scaling-up considerations (curvature of the Earth, Coriolis forces), concluding that 30-meter-diameter mirrors should be feasible. Borra (1987) reviews the present status of the concept and speculates on its future.…”