Manufacturing techniques are traditional and the workshop has a capacity of 5 double-eccentric polishing machines and one roughing machine. This atelier was created to meet the demands of optical-related projects developed by LISE, such as the projects OVLA (1.52m thin mirrors F/1.7) and CARLINA (plane and spherical mirrors, between 250 and 600mm in diameter). It can also respond promptly to requests by laboratories and institutions external to LISE, and has also made optical components for the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur (MEO, solar experiments), the LESIA at Meudon (test bench for stellar coronography) and the LUAN at the UNS (ASTEP for AstroConcordia at dome C, Antartica).
 
The workshop is currently engaged on the project C2PU of the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur with the elaboration of the optics for equipping the combination of two 1m telescopes for an educational project at UNS.
 
David VERNET is in charge of the optics workshop.
 
 Polishing of a mirror of 1.04m at f/2.88 (C2PU project). Visual examination of the polishing quality.  Handling with suction cups of a 1,04m-diameter primary mirror at the end of the fine grinding phase (C2PU project).  General view of the workshop. On the foreground: the lapping tool of one of the main mirrors of the C2PU.