Very interesting application, but not new. A means of data acquisition to match model needs when there
are strong limits of expense or capability.
Inexpensive technology could be used to build giant telescope on the Moon 13 june 2022 By Daniel Clery in Science
A unique telescope that focuses light with a slowly spinning bowl of liquid mercury instead of a solid mirror has opened its eye to the skies above India. Such telescopes have been built before, but the 4-meter-wide International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) is the first large one to be purpose-built for astronomy, at the kind of high-altitude site observers prize—the 2450-meter Devasthal Observatory in the Himalayas.
Although astronomers must satisfy themselves with only looking straight up, the $2 million instrument, built by a consortium from Belgium, Canada, and India, is much cheaper than telescopes with glass mirrors. A stone’s throw from ILMT is the 3.6-meter, steerable Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT)—built by the same Belgian company at the same time—but for $18 million. “Simple things are often the best,” says Project Director Jean Surdej of the University of Liège. Some astronomers say liquid mirrors are the perfect technology for a giant telescope on the Moon that could see back to the time of the universe’s very first stars. ..... '
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