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Other Astronomical Sites: GMT Casting Event |
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Approximately 125 astronomers, administrators and guests attended a July 23, 2005 meeting in Tucson, Arizona celebrating the casting of the first of seven 8.4 meter mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) . The group responsible for the project are: Carnegie Institution, Harvard University, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, University of Arizona, University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Texas and Texas A&M. When completed and placed in Chile the instrument will be the largest telescope in the world with resolution "ten times that of the Hubble Space Telescope". The University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab is building the mirrors in a huge spinning furnace (in order to achieve a meniscus shape to the molten glass). Twenty tons of E6 borosilicate glass from Ohara Glassworks in Japan is used in the casting of the first 8.4-meter (27-foot) diameter mirror for the GMT. With this milestone step, the GMT becomes the first extremely large ground-based telescope to start construction.
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