Abstract Multi-messenger astronomy requires the use and development of telescopes and detectors for temporal observations across all the electromagnetic spectrum. The interest of our team is towards time-domain (or longitudinal, in the jargon of storage ring diagnostics) detectors able to make observations over the time rather than transversely by making photographs or spectrographs. The FAIRTEL (Fast InfraRed TELescope) experiment wants to build a very fast detector in the Mid InfraRed (MIR) to be used in time-domain astronomy. The experiment is oriented mainly toward the search of fast astronomical transients in the Galaxy, similarly to what has been observed in different electromagnetic ranges with the discovery of the FRBs (Fast Radio Burst) and the GRBs (Gamma-Ray Burst). In the last years, time-domain astronomy is growing in interest and intends to study events on time scales that can go from hundreds of milliseconds to microseconds and even shorter. The detector proposed by the FAIRTEL experiment, is based on HgCdTe semiconductors and on the experience done in the diagnostics for storage ring developed at DAFNE, the Italian e+/e− circular collider. The detection system design is in progress at the LNF (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati) of INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) while the telescope will be a standard reflecting type, like a Newtonian, a Cassegrain or a Ritchey–Chrétien telescope. The detection apparatus is under test at the IR synchrotron beamline SINBAD at DAFNE and it is foreseen to be implemented at the OPC (Osservatorio Polifunzionale del Chianti). It should be able to observe events with transients down to the nanosecond. A further development of the project involves the extension from ground-based observations to those by using balloons for scientific studies.