OREANDA-NEWS. Shvabe Holding Company has delivered a set of three mirrors for a high-tech automatic telescope in an astronomic observatory in the Alps.

The mountain observatory uses the newly installed mirrors only in test mode for now, but the tests have been successful: the new optics have been able to help capture high-resolution images of spiral galaxy NGC 891, which lies 30 million light-years away from the Milky Way is very similar to it. The telescope was built as part of the Origin and Structure of the Universe program.

Craftsmen and engineers of the Lytkarino Optical Glass Factory (LYGF), a Shvabe subsidiary, made all the mirrors to order of the Munich University. The mirrors were manufactured to a high standard of precision offering quality approaching the diffraction limit, meeting the observatory's stringent requirements.

As a reminder, Lytkarino was also the factory that manufactured earlier 17 sets of lighter primary and secondary high-precision aspherical mirrors for US-based telescopes in the Las Cumbres telescope network. The primary mirror in each of the sets is one meter in diameter.

Other customers ordering optics for their telescope groups from the Lytkarino Optical Glass Factory included the US Faulkes Telescope Project, the European Southern Observatory, the Large Multipurpose Spectroscope in China designed to observe wide-field areas of the sky, as well as a number of other similar research and exploration facilities. It is noteworthy that the primary 11-meter mirror of the South African Large Telescope (one of the largest in the world) is made up of 91 Astrositall optical segments manufactured at the LOGF.

Alongside Germany and Japan, Russia is a top-three optical glass producer in the world.

Shvabe Holding Company comprises key companies of the Russian optical - electronics industry - 64 organizations all in all, including R&D and manufacturing facilities, design bureaus, optics research institutes, as well as sales and service companies. The holding company designs and manufactures high-tech optoelectronic systems, optical materials, medical equipment, energy-saving lighting equipment and other products. The holding company is a subsidiary of Rostec Corporation.