  An overview is given of the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project. The
primary goal of PASS is the detection of all transiting giant planets in the
entire sky, complete for stellar systems of magnitudes ~ 5.5-10.5. Since the
sample stars are fairly bright and relatively close, planets detected by PASS
would be ideally suited for any follow-up study with ground- or space-based
instrumentation. The survey would also allow the pursuit of a variety of work
on temporal astronomical phenomena of any kind, and is intended to lead to a
permanent all-sky tracking of variable stars with high temporal resolution. The
instrument consists of arrays of CCD cameras with wide-field optics that cover
the entire sky visible from their observing locations. Calculations of the
instrument's noise sources and subsequent simulations indicate that the
proposed design is able to achieve the prime objective of a full-sky survey for
transits. An equation for the signal-to-noise ratio from photometry of unguided
stellar images is given in the appendix, together with equations for the
detection probability of planetary transits based on the observational coverage
and the instrument's duty cycle.
