The Telescope's Spectacles

Open space high above the Earth in hard white sunlight against a black sky, the curved side of a large orbiting telescope wrapped in crinkled silver foil with patches of gold foil, an open rectangular bay in its flank, two hands in thick white spacesuit gloves easing a large fan-shaped wedge of black anodised metal into the bay, the wedge two metres across with rows of rivets, curved silver pipes and copper-coloured cables along its side, a silver handrail at its edge, a flat white radiator plate forming its outer face, every surface plain and unmarked, a white webbing tether, far below the blue ocean and white cloud bands of the Earth.