While most telescopes focus (pun intended) on seeing far, this one focuses on seeing wide and often. It will be able to survey and resurvey the same large swaths of the sky. Offline analysis will be able to detect changes between different surveys. And these differences may show objects that are too faint, or at unknown locations such as a new undiscovered solar planet.

This ability is reflected in the telescope's working title of "Large Synoptic Survey Telescope".