In 1989 I was approached by the Mullard Space Research Laboratories at Holmbry St Marys for some special photography. I had been recommended by someone who knew the photographic work I was doing for NCR.

   Their problem was to make a precision image about 50 x 50 mm of extremely fine lines around 15 microns wide. The best graphic reproduction available commercially at the time was about 50 microns over a large area up to A3 size which was not good enough.

   The microchip industry was producing lines much finer for silicon chip manufacture of only 4 or 5 microns but they could only do it up to 10 x 10 mm size.

The NCR microfiche system I developed was mid way between these parameters. I was using the same plates used by the microelectronics people (100 x 100 mm)  and could image over the whole plate with a resolution of better than 25 microns (0.001").

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   The image was required for the photon sensitive viewfinder of the telescope. It was a cleverly thought out system where an image area was divided into pattern of asymmetrical areas connected to electronic sensors. When a single photon struck the sensor it affected charge on the sensor by varying amounts depending on the point at which it landed.

   In this way the system knew exactly the direction the photon had come from and hence how to steer the telescope. The fineness of the lines required was to minimise the 'dead' areas of the viewfinder as a photon striking a 'line' i,e, a dead separation area was not sensed.

My plate was used as the artwork for etching the sensor areas and I was told it was a success and I got paid the princely sum of £150 for it.

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Sorry no photos of it as it was all restricted information at the time.