Mirror image

Large-scale telescopic lenses that allow us to see into the depths of the universe have been manufactured abroad in recent years, but a new UK university and industry collaboration hopes to bring that production capability back home.

The group recently developed three new machine systems that can produce mirrors more than 1m in size for use on extra-large telescopes like those at the European Southern Observatory.

The UK always had the skills to produce such mirrors, said Paul Shore, head of the precision engineering centre at

, but the manufacturing technology was always developed here and then sold to countries including the US or France. 'You start to see that loads of these clever ideas came from the UK, but when you look and see who's actually making money out of it, it's the Americans or the French,' he said.

Shore thought the best way to put a stop to that was to develop full large-optic production facilities in the UK. With £3.6m funding from the