Abstract
Recent advances in the technology of
rotating liquid-mirrors now make feasible the
construction of large optical telescopes for
dedicated survey programs. Two three-metre-class
astronomical telescopes have been built and
asix-metre telescope is under construction. These
instruments observe in zenith-pointing mode, using
drift-scanning CCD cameras to record continuous
imaging of a strip of sky typically 20 arcmin
wide. This enables them to observe of order 100
square degrees of sky with an integration time of
a few minutes per night. Data can be co-added from
night to night in order to increase the depth of
the survey. Liquid-mirror telescopes are
particularly wellsuited to surveys using broad or
intermediate bandwidth filters to obtain
photometric redshifts and spectral energy
distributions for faint galaxies and
quasars.
Water entry of spheres into a rotating liquid
