On the capabilities of survey telescopes of moderate size

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the capabilities of moderate-sized optical survey telescopes with apertures up to 1 meter, analyzing their design options, survey efficiency, and potential for detecting faint objects across large sky areas.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of nine new wide-field telescope designs, detailing their optical layouts and performance metrics for survey applications.

Findings

Single 1 m telescope can detect objects brighter than 22.5 magnitude across the entire sky in one night.

Hierarchic networks of optimized telescopes can improve data reliability for survey tasks.

Design parameters influence survey speed and limiting magnitude, guiding system selection for specific observational goals.

Abstract

To explore capabilities of moderate-size optical telescopes in surveys, the set of 9 new wide-field designs having apertures up to 1 m is considered. All but one systems have angular field of view in a range 3.5-10 degrees and flat focal surface; the field of the last system is 45 degrees in diameter at the 0.5 m aperture and spherical focal surface. The complete description of the optical layouts is given in the Appendix. Relations between the expected limiting magnitude, survey speed and exposure time allow to choose the system that is most suitable for a particular task of observations. In principle, a single wide-field telescope with the aperture of approximately 1 m can detect objects brighter than 22.5 magnitude over the entire hemisphere within one night, however, the reliability of acquired data can be significantly increased by using a hierarchic observational network comprised of telescopes with optimized parameters.