Giant telescope's first mirror installed

[United Press International]

TUCSON, April 29 (UPI) -- The first of two twin mirrors has
been successfully installed in what will be the world's most
powerful telescope in Arizona, BBC Online reported.
Workers painstakingly transported the mirror, which is
27-feet, 6-inches across from where it was cast and figured at the
University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab near Tucson
and transported it 135 miles to the top of Mount Graham where the
telescope is being built.
When both mirrors are installed, the Large Binocular
Telescope will be the world's most advanced optical telescope with
images sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope's, the report said.
Each mirror costs $22 million.
Peter Strittmatter, president of the Large Binocular
Telescope Corp. said the telescope's twin mirrors will combine their
images, providing the light-gathering power of a much larger, single
mirror, equivalent to one 38.7 feet across.
"It will be the first of a new generation of extremely large
telescopes," he said.
The project began in 1996 and will be completed next year.