Design of the Pan‐STARRS telescopes

Abstract Pan‐STARRS, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, is a project by the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, to first develop a single wide field synoptic survey telescope (Pan‐STARRS‐1) followed by a system of four such telescopes. It is designed to accomplish many of the science goals envisioned by the Decadal Review for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The primary mission of Pan‐STARRS is the detection of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA), secondary science objectives are a (nearly) all‐sky survey, a medium‐deep survey, an ultra‐deep survey, and studies of transients and variable objects. This paper presents the current status of the telescope system design, with emphasis on the optics. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)