High-tin bronzes were already used for mirrors in antiquity. These alloys were also employed in reflecting telescopes before the availability of silvered glass mirrors of sufficient optical quality. Bronze mirrors from six 18th-century telescopes in the collections of the Musée d’histoire des sciences in Geneva, four of them signed by well-known London instrument makers, were analysed for this study. Their composition is discussed in the context of historic recipes and reference results from other contemporary telescopes.
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Anheuser et al. (2024) studied this question.
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