The 7DT array

7DT is an array of twenty 50-cm commercial off-the-shelf telescopes. Each unit is a PlaneWave DeltaRho 500 optical tube assembly on an L-500 direct-drive mount operated in equatorial configuration, paired with a Moravian Instruments C3-61000 PRO CMOS camera — every unit identical but for the filters it carries. Sixteen of the twenty are deployed and operational as of June 2026, and the four remaining units complete the array. All operational units share a common configuration and show consistent optical performance in routine use.

Across the sixteen operational units the point-spread function measured at field center on good nights ranges from 1.4 to 2.2 arcseconds FWHM, with an array median of 2.0 arcseconds closely tracking the median site seeing. Unit-to-unit scatter in delivered FWHM is 0.2 arcseconds, and the PSF grows by 0.3 arcseconds from field center to corner while ellipticity stays below 0.1 over the central 80 percent of the field. The array behaves as a coherent set of instruments rather than sixteen independent telescopes. Median delivered FWHM has held stable to within 0.3 arcseconds since routine survey operations began in July 2024.