The Fast Astronomical Survey Telescope (FAST)

The Fast Astronomical Survey Telescope (FAST; Nir et al. 2021; PI: Eran Ofek) is a 55-cm Schmidt telescope at the Weizmann Astronomical observatory in Neot Smadar. The telescope was operational for a year when located at the Wise Observatory in Mizpe Ramon, but after moving the telescope to Neot Smadar problems with the camera occurred, such that it is currently in engineering mode.

The telescope was designed and built in the Weizmann Institute. The size of the corrected field of view is 23 deg² or 9x9 cm in the focal plane. Our first generation camera had a 7 deg² field of view and is capable of taking 100 images per second with low read noise.

Data is generated at a high rate of over 6 Gbits/s at a frame rate of 25 Hz and is analyzed in real time. The observatory is fully robotic and capable of autonomously collecting data on a few thousand stars in each field per night.

The telescope is exploring the night sky on sub-second time scales. Among the main science goals are the detection and characterization of small trans-Neptunian objects, and the study of fast stellar variability.