- Maire, Jérôme;
- Wright, Shelley A;
- Cosens, Maren;
- Antonio, Franklin P;
- Aronson, Michael L;
- Chaim-Weismann, Samuel A;
- Drake, Frank D;
- Horowitz, Paul;
- Howard, Andrew W;
- Marcy, Geoffrey W;
- Raffanti, Rick;
- Siemion, Andrew PV;
- Stone, Remington PS;
- Treffers, Richard R;
- Uttamchandani, Avinash;
- Werthimer, Dan
- Editor(s): Takami, Hideki;
- Evans, Christopher J;
- Simard, Luc
We propose a novel instrument design to greatly expand the current optical and near-infrared SETI search pa- rameter space by monitoring the entire observable sky during all observable time. This instrument is aimed to search for technosignatures by means of detecting nano- to micro-second light pulses that could have been emitted, for instance, for the purpose of interstellar communications or energy transfer. We present an instru- ment conceptual design based upon an assembly of 198 refracting 0.5-m telescopes tessellating two geodesic domes. This design produces a regular layout of hexagonal collecting apertures that optimizes the instrument footprint, aperture diameter, instrument sensitivity and total field-of-view coverage. We also present the optical performance of some Fresnel lenses envisaged to develop a dedicated panoramic SETI (PANOSETI) observatory that will dramatically increase sky-area searched (pi steradians per dome), wavelength range covered, number of stellar systems observed, interstellar space examined and duration of time monitored with respect to previous optical and near-infrared technosignature finders.