This is how we made our mirrors for the Starshine Project!

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1. Caris dazzling us with a starshine mirror!

2. Class 1 and 2 with Mr Jones.

3. Elliott watches a helping hand before it is his turn.

4. Elliott's go!

5. Caris grinding one of the mirrors.

6. Lucy grinding a mirror.

7. Mrs McMeeking also did her bit of grinding.

8. These are our mirror blanks at different stages through the process.

9. Husein's turn

10. Thomas checking the stopwatch. 1 minute each!

11. Hannah working hard to get a perfect finish.

12. Michael and Lucy checking on the proceedings.

13. Robert polishing hard.

14. A hive of activity!

15. Lucy films Robert's work.

16. Showing off the mirrors at the end of the grinding phase.

17. Now it's time to start the 3 micron diamond polishing.

18. Our intrepid astronauts, Sam, Elliott, Robert, Caris, Hannah and Lucy have been watching the space shuttle mission STS109 to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

19. The 'Astronauts' study the space shuttle user manual!

20. Polished mirrors at the end of the 3 micron stage.

21. Our Web page!

22. Yuck! The chempad with diamond cutting compound after several hours of work!

23. & 24. Photo opportunity after hard effort with the mirrors.

25. Lucy starts timing Joanna's grinding session.

26. Caris carefully measures out the Aluminium Oxide grinding slurry.

27. ...and then has the first go grinding our Starshine mirrors.

28. Shake that bottle to make sure the slurry is well mixed up!

29. Our starshine kit in Mrs McMeeking's classroom.

30. The pink aluminium oxide is starting to turn grey with the aluminium cut from the mirror surface.

31. Lucy and Joanna.

32. & 33. Thomas.

34. Husein works very carefully.

35. Now it is Mrs McMeeking's turn!

36. ... and Thomas makes sure that she doesn't spend too long!

37. Will we ever finish?

38. That's looking quite good. The end of the grinding is in sight!

39. Hannah starts the polishing.

40. The astronauts check out the instructions for flying a Space Shuttle.

41. Watching the shuttle on the internet.

42. Our mirror

43. The mirror on the polishing pad.

44. It is starting to shine now!

45. Only a few more hours to go!!!

46. Looking good!

47. Our mirror posing next to another satellite!

48. This space shuttle launched the last Starshine satellite.

49. There it goes into the distance... (This is the previous Starshine satellite. We're all looking forward to see our satellite in space!)

50. This is where our mirror is going... to be fitted onto a giant 'disco ball' in the sky!

51. It will be launched from the Space Shuttle in January 2003.