FIRST RESULTS OF AQUEYE, A PRECURSOR ULTRA FAST PHOTOMETER FOR THE E-ELT

In 2005 we designed a possible focal plane instrument (QuantEYE) for the 100 m OverWhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) of the European Southern Observatory, as the fastest photon counting astronomical photometer ever conceived, with an array of 100 parallel channels, capable to push the time tagging capabilities toward the pico-second region. Thanks to this extremely high time resolution, and to the enormous photon flux at the output of OWL, it would be possible for the first time to study second-order statistical functions in the photon stream from celestial sources. To acquire real experience with such novel type of astronomical instrumentation, we have built and put in operation a small prototype (AquEYE), with four independent photon counting channels, at the Asiago 182 cm telescope. Each channel has a time tagging capability better than one nanosecond, at a maximum photon rate of 2 MHz. The peak sensitivity of the system is in the visible. This paper will describe the main results obtained so far in the laboratory and at the telescope.