At the end of June 2024, one of the most important technical event for ground-based, airborne, space-based telescopes and their supporting instrumentation, the “SPIE Telescopes + Instrumentation”, took placein Yokohama, Japan.
In the frame of such valuable venue an important paper was presented to the public by OHB Italia (Prime Contractor), INAF, University of Padua, Studio SOME: “FLYEYE GROUND BASED TELESCOPE: UNVEILING NEW FRONTIERS IN ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCE”.
Leading star of the scene was the pioneering FLYEYE Telescope, which integrates a monolithic 1-meter class primary mirror feeding 16 CCD cameras for discovering Near-Earth Object (NEO) and any class of transient phenomena on a collision course with Earth, providing crucial advance notice of potential impacts within weeks or days. The FLYEYE distinctive design splits the Field of View into 16 channels, creating a unique multi-telescope system with a panoramic 44 square degree Field of View. While traditional telescopes provide snapshots that may miss critical changes or phenomena that occur rapidly or irregularly, the FLYEYE rapid scanning capability adds dynamic, capturing data across a wide spectrum of celestial events (fast radio bursts, high energy phenomena, development of supernovae, interaction of binary star system).
Placed atop Mount Mufara in Sicily and robotized, FLYEYE ability to survey two-thirds of the visible sky about three times per night will revolutionize astronomy, enabling comprehensive studies of transient phenomena, placing FLYEYE in a new era of exploration of the dynamic universe.
The Telescope can strategically work in synergy with other major astronomical projects, the Vera Rubin Telescope and the Zwicky Transient Facility. This integration can extend capabilities of this existing and planned observational infrastructures, by adding additional measurements in the visible sky or additional Earth longitude coverage. Such monitoring can lead to breakthroughs in understanding the structure and the evolution of the ever-changing universe, in opening new avenues for discovery and in giving to astronomers new tools available to study the temporal aspects of the cosmos.
