Port Coquitlam’s Dynamic Structures unveiled its latest technology for use in telescopes at a September 27 event attended by Minister of Industry James Moore.
The company has been building more than half of the world’s large optical and radio telescopes around the world for the last 30 years, Dynamic Structures’ CEO Guy Nelson told Business in Vancouver.
Dynamic Structures revealed its thin-mirror technology that the company said will dramatically change the way scientists are able to study the universe.
“Currently, with existing telescopes that we’ve been building for the last 30 years, they all use what is called ‘fat-mirror’ technology,” said Nelson.
“It takes years to polish these, they are very heavy and the structures required to house them that we build are robust. Everything is massive in scale because of these fat mirrors that have to be moved to precision tolerances.”
The thin-mirror technology and a newly patented machine to polish the mirrors will allow for much lighter telescopes, leading to more affordable observatories.
