LEXT: The Lobster-Eye X-ray Telescope

LEXT is a lobster eye X-ray telescope concept developed for the Gamow MIDEX proposal. LEXT uses square-pored Micro Pore Optic glass plates coupled with a large X-ray CCD focal plane array to operate in the 0.3 - 5.0 keV band. LEXT’s large field of view (37 x 37 degrees) and focusing optics give it a sensitivity and grasp very well suited to detecting and locating weak X-ray transients. Additionally, LEXT's position uncertainty for new sources of <2 arcminutes make it an ideal instrument for following up and localizing new sources from other instruments with much larger position uncertainties on the order of degrees (eg, from scintillator based instruments or gravitational wave detectors).