Number 119 (Story #4), March 19, 1993 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein A 2.7-M LIQUID TELESCOPE MIRROR has been fashioned by spinning a bowl of mercury about a vertical axis. The rotating mercury assumes a parabolic shape and reflects 80% of the incident light. The telescope is cheap (costing less than $200,000) but not steerable; in a perpetually upright orientation, its field of view is an overhead strip only 1/3 of a degree wide. Nevertheless, scientists at the University of British Columbia hope to find 100,000 galaxies (as faint as magnitude 21) and 2000 quasars. (Sky & Telescope, April 1993.)