A turbine engine optical system includes a plurality of viewing ports in an engine case that are circumferentially spaced from one-another. At least one optical device is optically coupled to the ports for viewing an internal chamber defined by the engine case and for depicting at least spatial temperature distributions. The chamber may be an exhaust chamber and the controller may have the capability to correlate events in the exhaust chamber to events in an upstream combustor chamber and may thereby adjust operating parameters of a fuel system of the combustor.