  We report the successful development and operation of a large astronomical
liquid-mirror telescope. Employing a rotating 2.7-meter diameter mirror with a
surface of liquid mercury, the telescope images a half-degree diameter field
centered at the zenith. Located near Vancouver, British Columbia, it is
equipped with a low-noise 2048x2048-pixel CCD detector, operating in TDI mode,
which produces continuous imaging of a 20 arcminute-widestrip of sky with 2
minute integration time. Images with FWHM of 2 arcseconds or less are regularly
obtained. This image quality is limited only by atmospheric seeing and
star-trail curvature. The telescope is equipped with a series of narrow-band
filters, designed to produce 40-point spectral energy distributions from 0.4 to
1.0 microns of all detected objects. These will allow classification and
redshift estimation of approximately 25,000 galaxies and 1,000 quasars to a
limiting magnitude of R~21.
