A field telespectrometer PEGASUS, designed for passive optical remote sensing of aquatic environment, is described. PEGASUS is a spectrometer with mechanical scanning of the spectrum (in the wavelength range 400-700 nm). It uses a photomultiplier as the light detector for measuring the sea and sky radiance and recording the whole complex of these signals with a PC.The prototype of PEGASUS was designed at the research institute VNIIOFI in Moscow (1981) and later developed by an Estonian marine optics group. Since 1987 this measuring system has been constantly used in the marine optics expeditions of the Estonian Marine Institute and the results obtained have been discussed in many papers. In the present paper the design criteria, operation and methodology of the work of PEGASUS, the principles of its calibration, and accuracy estimations are given.