Paper
18 December 2019 Program objectives and specifications for the Ultra-Fast Astronomy observatory
Siyang Li, George F. Smoot, Bruce Grossan, Albert Wai Kit Lau, Marzhan Bekbalanova, Mehdi Shafiee, Thorsten Stezelberger
Author Affiliations +
Proceedings Volume 11341, AOPC 2019: Space Optics, Telescopes, and Instrumentation; 113411Y (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2548169
Event: Applied Optics and Photonics China (AOPC2019), 2019, Beijing, China
Abstract
We present program objectives and specifications for the first generation Ultra-Fast Astronomy (UFA) observatory which will explore a new astrophysical phase space by characterizing the variability of the optical (320 nm - 650 nm) sky in the millisecond to nanosecond timescales. One of the first objectives of the UFA observatory will be to search for optical counterparts to fast radio bursts (FRB) that can be used to identify the origins of FRB and probe the epoch of reionization and baryonic matter in the interstellar and intergalactic mediums. The UFA camera will consist of two single-photon resolution fast-response detector 16x16 arrays operated in coincidence mounted on the 0.7 meter Nazarbayev University Transient Telescope at the Assy-Turgen Astrophysical Observatory (NUTTelA-TAO) located near Almaty, Kazakhstan. We are currently developing two readout systems that can measure down to the microsecond and nanosecond timescales and characterizing two silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) and one photomultiplier tube (PMT) to compare the detectors for the UFA observatory and astrophysical observations in general.
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Siyang Li, George F. Smoot, Bruce Grossan, Albert Wai Kit Lau, Marzhan Bekbalanova, Mehdi Shafiee, and Thorsten Stezelberger "Program objectives and specifications for the Ultra-Fast Astronomy observatory", Proc. SPIE 11341, AOPC 2019: Space Optics, Telescopes, and Instrumentation, 113411Y (18 December 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2548169
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Cited by 9 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Sensors

Observatories

Cameras

Photons

Astronomy

Observational astronomy

Ultrafast phenomena

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