The 62-ton piece of glass that will soon become Rubin Observatory's combined primary/tertiary mirror was unboxed at the summit this week and lifted onto its steel support cell! 🧵
A team from the @uarizona Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab made the trip to Chile to complete the lift using a custom-made vacuum lifter called a "spider" 🕷️
Next up: integrating the glass with the cell, and then moving it to the coating chamber to get its shiny silver coating!
And no, we didn't order the mirror in blue by mistake--that's a protective Opti-Coat layer that keeps the vacuum lifter from damaging the surface of the glass. It'll be removed before the mirror is coated!
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