Simultaneous spectral imaging system including commonly filtered optical paths defined by focusing elements exhibiting disparate f-numbers

A multi-image detector assembly for detecting a plurality of correlated images of a single scene over a plurality of disparate electromagnetic wavelength sets, the detector assembly comprising:

• an array of detector elements, the array comprising a plurality of detector-array sections, each detector-array section comprising at least two detector-array subsections dedicated to the detection of a common wavelength set associated with that detector-array section;
• a plurality of optical focusing elements, each focusing element aligned for focusing upon a corresponding one of the plurality of detector-array sub-sections an image of the scene correlating to the images of the scene focused upon other detector-array sub-sections by the other focusing elements of the plurality of focusing elements, each focusing element and its corresponding detector-array sub-section defining an optical path;
• and
• a plurality of optical filtering elements, each filtering element being configured to pass a selected wavelength set;
• wherein (i) each detector-array section has associated with it at least two optical paths, (ii) each optical filtering element is disposed within at least two optical paths associated with a common detector-array section, and (iii) when the detector assembly is in an operative mode, image detection occurs continuously and simultaneously over plural disparate detector-array sections in order to provide a correlated set of images over plural wavelength sets.