Description
With the advances in technologies, astronomers have discovered astronomical transients at increasingly faster time scales down to milliseconds - more specifically at radio wavelengths. Venturing into the unexplored territory of optical astronomy at nanoseconds time scales, we built the first nanosecond-resolved telescope SPINA. This ultra fast telescope utilised the short dead time and the single-photon resolvability of silicon photomultiplier (SiPM), thus enabling continuous monitoring of the light curve of stars with 8 ns resolution. To handle the massive amount (at the bit rate of >~1 Gb/s) of raw data produced by each sensor, we developed a readout system based on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) achieving real time light curve monitoring that is sustainable for longer survey time. The prototype of the SPINA system has been tested in NUTTellA-TAO observatory located in Kazakhstan in 2023, featuring the observation of a few bright stars, allowing for calibration with the GAIA catalogue. We developed a noise model that characterised the stationary response of our detector. Scheduled upgrades on SPINA2 are expected to start in late 2025, incorporating the feedback from the 2023 prototype. A few astronomical use cases of SPINA will also be discussed.
