Liquid mirror telescope
Espejo líquido
- Date
- 1872 · confidence high
- Place
- Naples, Campania, Italy
- Credited to
- Ernesto Capocci y Isaac Newton
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A telescope whose primary mirror consists of a reflective liquid, usually mercury, spun at a constant speed to assume a paraboloidal shape, proposed by astronomer Ernesto Capocci building on an idea of Newton's.
What it led to
- development of low-cost, large-aperture liquid-mirror telescopes
- application in fixed zenith observatories of the 20th and 21st centuries
- later use of low-melting-point metals such as gallium