“To detect fainter and more distant objects in the cosmos, astronomers need bigger telescopes. And bigger telescopes – several of which are currently under construction around the world – rely on ever bigger mirrors to collect that incoming starlight. The University of Arizona’s Buddy Martin and Dae Wook Kim describe how they engineer these gargantuan mirrors with painstaking precision. Imperfections are not tolerated: if one of their 27-foot mirrors were scaled up to the size of North America, the tallest mountain would be one inch high and the deepest canyon would be one inch low.”

Maggie Villiger

Editor

The Conversation US

The POW 2016 Spring workshop series (1/11-1/12) has been successfully presented with more than 30+ participants from academia and industry. Four modular workshops have been offered including various hands-on lab sessions.

Congratulation, Emma Landsiedel (LOFT undergraduate student). Emma was listed as one of the  ​”Dean’s List With Distinction“​ students at the College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona in 2015.

Congratulations, Logan Graves (LOFT PhD student). Logan’s IR deflectometry poster presentation won the 2nd place at the Industrial Affiliates workshop, College of Optical Sciences, in Fall 2015.

Check out the poster: IR Deflectometry Poster

Dr. Run Huang successfully defended her dissertation, “High Precision Optical Surface Metrology using Deflectometry.”, on July 27th, 2015.  Congratulations, and please see her other publications for more detail on her work.

The SLOTS system, developed by LOFT group alumni Dr. Tianquan Su, has gained recognition through a new SPIE newsroom article. The publication presents a layperson description of the SLOTS system and how its novel IR deflectometery approach has been successful as accurately and rapidly measuring freeform optics which allows for a faster manufacturing process. The article also discusses future potential applications. You can read it at SPIE.

Source: SPIE Newsroom

A comparison of telescope systems; Source: Wikimedia Commons

An interesting article discussing the current largest telescopes on Earth and in space, as well as the future of large telescopes.

Original article

Dr. Tianquan Su successfully defended his dissertation, “Aspherical Surface Metrology with the Scanning Long-Wave Optical Test System”, on November 12th, 2014.  Congratulations, and please see his other publications for more detail on his work.

Measurements of polarization of the cosmic microwave background. Credit: POLARBEAR

A recent publication in the Astrophysical Journal reported that curl was detected in some of the oldest measurable light in the universe.  This was the result of measurements taken from an observatory in Chile’s Atacama desert.  See source for more information.

Dr. Laura Coyle successfully defended her dissertation, “Precision alignment and calibration of optical systems using computer generated holograms”, on August 8th, 2014.  Congratulations, and please see her other publications for more detail on her work.