Introducing the Condor Array Telescope. 1. Motivation, Configuration, and Performance

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2301.06301
• Publication Date: 2023-01-01
• Authors: Kenneth M. Lanzetta; Stefan Gromoll; Michael M. Shara; Stephen Berg; D. Valls‐Gabaud; F. M. Walter; John K. Webb
• Keywords: Large format; Field of view

The "Condor Array Telescope" or "Condor" is a high-performance "array telescope" comprised of six apochromatic refracting telescopes objective diameter 180 mm, each equipped with large-format, very low-read-noise ($\approx 1.2$ e$^-$), rapid-read-time ($< 1$ s) CMOS camera. Condor located at dark astronomical site in the southwest corner New Mexico, Dark Sky Mexico observatory near Animas, roughly midway between (and more than 150 km from either) Tucson and El Paso. enjoys wide field view ($2.29 \times 1.53$ deg$^2$ 3.50 deg$^2$), optimized for measuring both point sources extended, low-surface-brightness features, broad-band images can operate cadence 60 s (or even less) while remaining sky-noise limited duty cycle 100\%. In its normal mode operation, obtains exposures exposure time over dwell times spanning dozens hundreds hours. this way, builds up deep, sensitive simultaneously monitoring tens thousands per s. also diffraction gratings set He II 468.6 nm, [O III] 500.7 I 587.5 H$α$ 656.3 [N II] 658.4 [S 671.6 nm narrow-band filters, allowing it to address variety broad- science issues. Given unique capabilities, access regions "astronomical discovery space" that have never before been studied. Here we introduce describe various aspects performance.