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http://www.universetoday.com/2008/02...or-telescopes/

Nano-Engineered Liquid Mirror Telescopes

Some astronomers feel that rotating liquid mirror telescopes (LMT) may revolutionize astronomy. LMTs work because the basic laws of nature — gravity and centrifugal force – conspire together to give LMTs the perfect, parabolic shape needed for astronomical observing. And unlike ordinary telescopes with glass mirrors that are expensive to make and maintain, LMTs are quite cost effective because of low construction costs (current estimates have liquid mirrors at 1% the cost of a glass mirror) and they don’t need to be polished or housed in an expensive mount. Ermanno Borra from Canada is one of the foremost experts on LMTs, and he has been constructing and testing different types of these telescopes since the early 1980’s. His latest research involves creating a tiltable LMT – previously thought to be almost impossible — by using a thin, reflective layer of self-assembling metallic nanoparticles.