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Astronomical Research with Liquid Mirror Telescopes
Ermanno F. Borra
Liquid mirror telescopes are of interest to Astronomy because of their very low capital and operating costs. Low cost has a potentially revolutionary impact since it allows one to…
Ultra-Thin Floating Mirrors
Ermanno F. Borra, Anna Ritcey, Etienne Artigau
We discuss a new technology that promises large inexpensive mirrors. We argue that it should be possible to tilt a rotating viscous liquid by perhaps as much as a few tens of degre…
Astronomical Research with liquid mirror telescopes
E. F. Borra
I discuss the modalities of zenith observing with LMTs, their limitations and advantages. The main limitation comes from the relatively small regions of the sky that LMTs can acces…
Liquid Mirror Telescopes: A Review
E. F. Borra
I review the present status of liquid mirror telescopes. In a nutshell: LMTs do work and several have been built and used. Extensive interferometric tests of liquid mirrors (the la…
THE NEED FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT IN OPTICAL ASTRONOMY: A SOLUTION GIVEN BY LIQUID MIRRORS AND EXAMPLES OF THEIR APPLICATIONS TO COSMOLOGY
E. F. Borra
I argue that there is a crisis in optical Astronomy due to a paucity of telescopes and thus the need for a paradigm shift in telescope technology. Large increases in collecting are…
An Optical Corrector Design That Allows a Fixed Telescope to Access a Large Region of the Sky
E. F. Borra, G. Moretto, M. Wang
We discuss a family of two-mirror correctors that can greatly extend the field accessible to a fixed telescope such as a liquid mirror telescope. The performance of the corrector i…