PANOSETI: Total System Overview
Abstract
PANOSETI (Pulsed All-Sky Near-infrared and Optical Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) is a dedicated SETI observatory that is being designed to continuously observe 4,441 sq. deg. of the night sky to search for transient events at nanosecond resolution. The experiment consists of two domes with 45 telescopes per dome, each with a 0.48 m aperture and 99 sq. deg. field of view. The baseline separation of the domes will be 1 km to help eliminate false positives with coincidence testing. We will give an overview of the mechanical design of the telescope modules which includes a Fresnel lens, a shutter, three baffles, and a 32x32 array of Hamamatsu Multi -Photon Pixel Counting (MPPC) detectors that reside on a linear focus stage. Each of the 45 telescopes will be mounted on a triangle of a 3rd tessellation frequency geodesic dome. Each telescope module has directional adjustment to correct for manufacturing tolerances and astrometric alignment to the second observatory site. Each observatory will have an all-sky enclosure to protect the experiment and an operations room. We will also review the overall design of the geodesic dome and mechanical telescope attachments, as well as the overall electrical and software systems. We will also briefly discuss science applications of the observatory such as our ability to detect Cherenkov air showers, and preliminary results from two prototype modules installed at Lick Observatory.
- Publication:
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The 2021 Assembly of the Order of the Octopus
- Pub Date:
- July 2021
- DOI:
- 10.5281/zenodo.5160066
- Bibcode:
- 2021aoo..confE..12W
- Keywords:
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- Zenodo community octopusassembly2021