We describe the optical design of a sky survey system comprised of small aperture telescope tube assemblies mounted
on a common semi-equatorial frame with a single polar axis. It is the first ground-based instrument to create a map of
transients down to optical m=17 by imaging a fixed-declination strip of the sky on a nightly basis. The system is fully
remotely automated and physically robust. The mount tracks the sky using a motion controller, drive motor, and a laser
rotary encoder. The prototype configuration is suited to house up to 6 telescopes on the current mount and is easily
expandable to accommodate up to 30 telescopes which would enable full sky coverage if one system each were placed in
the Northern and Southern Hemispheres1.
Raytheon has developed SWIR and Visible-SWIR Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) with over one million pixels that meet the
demanding requirements of astronomy, night vision, and other low background systems. FPA formats are 1280 × 1024,
1024 × 1024 and 2048 × 2048, with detector elements on 20 μm pitch. This paper describes recent results on SWIR
HgCdTe detectors, low-noise Readout Integrated Circuits (ROICs), and FPA imaging. SWIR HgCdTe detectors have
been fabricated with cutoff wavelengths of 1.7 and 2.5 μm and have demonstrated high quantum efficiency and flat
spectrals, including visible response to 400 nm. We compare InGaAs and HgCdTe detectors, and show HgCdTe
passivation improvements which increase carrier lifetime fourfold over existing processes
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