Overview
The LSST design is unique among large telescopes (8m-class primary mirrors) in having a very wide field of view: 3.5 degrees in diameter, or 9.6 square degrees. For comparison, both the Sun and Moon, as seen from the Earth, are 0.5 degrees across, or 0.2 square degrees. Combined with its large aperture (and thus light-collecting ability), this will give it a spectacularly large etendue of 319 m²degree².
To achieve this very wide undistorted field of view requires three mirrors, rather than the two used by most existing large telescopes: the primary mirror will be 8.4 meters in diameter, the secondary mirror will be 3.4 metres in diameter, and the tertiary mirror, located in a large hole in the primary, will be 5.0 metres in diameter. The large hole reduces the primary mirror's light collecting area to 35 m², equivalent to a 6.68 m diameter circle. (Multiplying this by the field of view produces an etendue of 336 m²degree²; the actual figure is reduced by vignetting.)
The primary and tertiary mirrors are being constructed as a single piece of glass, the "M1M3 monolith".
A 3.2 gigapixel prime focus digital camera will take a 15-second exposure every 20 seconds.
Allowing for maintenance, bad weather, etc., the camera is expected to take over 200,000 pictures (1.28 petabytes uncompressed) per year, far more than can be reviewed by humans. Managing and effectively data mining the enormous output of the telescope is expected to be the most technically difficult part of the project. Initial computer requirements are estimated at 100 teraflops of computing power and 15 petabytes of storage, rising as the project collects data.
Read more about this topic: Large Synoptic Survey Telescope