An All-Sky Optical SETI Survey

We present plans for an all-sky search for pulsed optical SETI beacons at Agassiz station in Harvard, Massachusetts. We will use a 1.8 meter f/2.5 spherical “light bucket” (2-3 arcmin resolution) focused onto a multi-pixel camera consisting of sixteen 64-pixel photomultiplier tubes (with pixels measuring 1.5 arcmin on a side) in two matched focal planes. It will observe a 1.°6×0.°2 patch of the sky in transit mode, thereby covering the Northern sky (−20° < δ < +60°) in 150 clear nights. Fast custom IC electronics will monitor corresponding pixels for coincident optical pulses of nanosecond timescale, triggering storage of a detailed digitized waveform of the light flash. Analysis will be similar to that from our ongoing targeted search