Panoramic optical and near-infrared SETI instrument: optical and structural design concepts
Jérôme Maire (a), Shelley A. Wright (a, b), Maren Cosens (a, b), Franklin Antonio (c), Michael Aronson (d), Samuel A. Chaim-Weismann (e), Frank D. Drake (f), Paul Horowitz (g),Andrew W. Howard (h), Geoffrey W. Marcy (e) Rick Raffanti (i), Andrew P.V. Siemion (e, f, j, k), Remington P.S. Stone (l), Richard R. Treffers (m), Avinash Uttamchandani (n), Dan Werthimer (e, o) ((a) Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences, University of California San Diego, USA, (b) Department of Physics, University of California San Diego, USA, (c) Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, USA, (d) Electronics Packaging Man, San Diego, USA, (e) Department of Astronomy, University of California Berkeley, USA, (f) SETI Institute, Mountain View, USA, (g) Department of Physics, Harvard University, USA, (h) Astronomy Department, California Institute of Technology, USA, (i) Techne Instruments, Oakland, USA, (j) Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands, (k) Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, University of Malta, (l) University of California Observatories, Lick Observatory, USA, (m) Starman Systems, Alamo, USA, (n) Nonholonomy, LLC, Cambridge, USA, (o) Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, USA)
(Submitted on 17 Aug 2018)
We propose a novel instrument design to greatly expand the current optical and near-infrared SETI search parameter space by monitoring the entire observable sky during all observable time. This instrument is aimed to search for technosignatures by means of detecting nano- to micro-second light pulses that could have been emitted, for instance, for the purpose of interstellar communications or energy transfer. We present an instrument conceptual design based upon an assembly of 198 refracting 0.5-m telescopes tessellating two geodesic domes. This design produces a regular layout of hexagonal collecting apertures that optimizes the instrument footprint, aperture diameter, instrument sensitivity and total field-of-view coverage. We also present the optical performance of some Fresnel lenses envisaged to develop a dedicated panoramic SETI (PANOSETI) observatory that will dramatically increase sky-area searched (pi steradians per dome), wavelength range covered, number of stellar systems observed, interstellar space examined and duration of time monitored with respect to previous optical and near-infrared technosignature finders.
Comments: 14 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Journal reference:
Proc. SPIE 10702, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII (2018)
DOI: 10.1117/12.2314444
Cite as: arXiv:1808.05773 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:1808.05773v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Maren Cosens
[v1] Fri, 17 Aug 2018 06:49:44 GMT (8386kb,D)
