High-Resolution, Wide-Field-of-View Scanning Telescope

A proposed telescope would afford high resolution over a narrow field of view (<0.10°) while scanning over a total field of view nominally 16° wide without need to slew the entire massive telescope structure. The telescope design enables resolution of a 1-m-wide object in a 50-km-wide area of the surface of the Earth as part of a 200-km-wide area field of view monitored from an orbit at an altitude of 700 km. The conceptual design of this telescope could also be adapted to other applications — both terrestrial and extraterrestrial — in which there are requirements for telescopes that afford both wide- and narrow-field capabilities.