| Description: | The mirror being polished shown in the picture is one of the six aluminium mirrors that will be used in the near-infrared arm of the X-Shooter spectrograph for ESO's VLT. These mirrors will all be polished in-house in the optical lab of Astron. The first and largest mirror (M7) was finished the end of last year (see the December issue of Astronnews), and the second mirror (M8, seen in the picture) should be finished early February. The mirror blank is protected from moisture by plastic foil. Polishing pitch (shown in the picture) and some secrets (not shown in the picture) are used to polish the optical surface of the mirror. |
