Abstract

We present a project of a multi-channel wide-field instrument, Small Aperture Imaging Network Telescope (SAINT), consisting of a number of 20–40-cm objectives with independent pointings, whose performance in narrow-field mode is comparable to one of a 4-meter-class telescope. Such an instrument, however, provides a great possibility of detecting and observing the fast variable targets, stable and moving, in various modes - photometric, polarimetric, spectroscopic - simultaneously, as well as to solve a wide-field monitoring tasks. Also, its advantages include much simpler construction, optics and maintenance than the ones required for a larger, monolithic design of the same performance, and, due to much smaller weight and size of each channel, a very fast repointing time of the whole system, which is critical for follow-up observations of detected explosive transient events.