The Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) is a single object spectrograph, built by an international consortium for the 3.58-m ESO New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory 1. It offers a simultaneous ...spectral coverage over 350-2000 nm, with two separate spectrographs. In this paper we present the status of the Near InfraRed (NIR) cryogenic echelle cross-dispersed spectrograph 1, in the range 0.80-2.00 {\mu}m with 15 orders, equipped with an 2k x 2k Hawaii H2RG IR array from Teledyne, working at 40K, that is currently assembled and tested on the SOXS instrument, in the premises of INAF in Padova. We describe the different tests and results of the cryo, vacuum, opto-mechanics and detector subsystems that finally will be part of the PAE by ESO.
The Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) will be the specialized facility to observe any transient event with a flexible scheduler at the ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla, Chile. SOXS is a single ...object spectrograph offering simultaneous spectral coverage in UV-VIS (350-850 nm) and NIR (800-2000 nm) wavelength regimes with an average of R~4500 for a 1arcsec slit. SOXS also has imaging capabilities in the visible wavelength regime. Currently, SOXS is being integrated at the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Padova. Subsystem- and system-level tests and verification are ongoing to ensure and confirm that every requirement and performance are met. In this paper, we report on the integration and verification of SOXS as the team and the instrument prepare for the Preliminary Acceptance Europe (PAE).
We present here the current performances of the AMBER / VLTI instrument for standard use and compare these with the offered modes of the instrument. We show that the instrument is able to reach its ...specified precision only for medium and high spectral resolution modes, differential observables and bright objects. For absolute observables, the current achievable accuracy is strongly limited by the vibrations of the Unit Telescopes, and also by the observing procedure which does not take into account the night-long transfer function monitoring. For low-resolution mode, the current limitation is more in the data reduction side, since several effects negligible at medium spectral resolution are not taken into account in the current pipeline. Finally, for faint objects (SNR around 1 per spectral channel), electromagnetic interferences in the VLTI interferometric laboratory with the detector electronics prevents currently to get unbiased measurements. Ideas are under study to correct in the data processing side this effect, but a hardware fix should be investigated seriously since it limits seriously the effective limiting magnitude of the instrument.
The Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) is a single object spectrograph, built by an international consortium for the 3.58-m ESO New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory, ranging from 350 to 2000 nm. ...In this paper, we present the progress in the AIT phase of the Near InfraRed (NIR) arm. We describe the different AIT phases of the cryo, vacuum, opto-mechanics and detector subsystems, that finally converged at the INAF-OAB premises in Merate (Italy), where the NIR spectrograph is currently being assembled and tested, before the final assembly on SOXS.
SPIE AIT 2020 In this paper we present the SOXS Scheduler, a web-based application aimed at
optimising remote observations at the NTT-ESO in the context of scientific
topics of both the SOXS ...Consortium and regular ESO proposals.This paper will
give details of how detected transients from various surveys are inserted,
prioritised, and selected for observations with SOXS at the NTT while keeping
the correct sharing between GTO time (for the SOXSConsortium) and the regularly
approved observing time from ESO proposals. For the 5-years of operation ofSOXS
this vital piece of software will provide a night-by-night dynamical schedule,
allowing the user to face rapid changes during the operations that might come
from varying weather conditions or frequent target of opportunity (ToO)
observations that require a rapid response. The scheduler is developed with
high available and scalable architecture in mind and it implements the
state-of-the-art technologies for API Restful application like Docker
Containers, API Gateway, and Python-based Flask frameworks.
We present our progress on the UV-VIS arm of Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS), a new
spectrograph for the NTT. Our design splits the spectral band into four
sub-bands that are imaged onto a single detector. ...Each band uses an optimized
high efficiency grating that operates in 1st order (m=1). In our previous paper
we presented the concept and preliminary design. SOXS passed a Final Design
Review in July 2018 and is well into the construction phase. Here we present
the final design, performances of key manufactured elements, and the progress
in the assembly. Based on the as-built elements, the expected throughput of the
visual arm will be >55%. This paper is accompanied by a series of contributions
describing the progress made on the SOXS instrument.
SOXS will be the new spectroscopic facility for the ESO NTT telescope able to
cover the optical and NIR bands by using two different arms: the UV-VIS
(350-850 nm), and the NIR (800-2000 nm). In this ...article, we describe the
development status of the visible camera cryostat, the architecture of the
acquisition system and the progress in the electronic design. The UV-VIS
detector system is based on a CCD detector 44-82 from e2v, a custom detector
head, coupled with the ESO continuous flow cryostats (CFC), a custom cooling
system, based on a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), and the New General
Controller (NGC) developed by ESO. This paper outlines the development status
of the system, describes the design of the different parts that make up the
UV-VIS arm and is accompanied by a series of information describing the SOXS
design solutions in the mechanics and in the electronics parts. The first tests
of the detector system with the UV-VIS camera will be shown.
SPIE Proceedings Volume 11447, Ground-based and Airborne
Instrumentation for Astronomy VIII; 1144766 (2020) SOXS is a new spectrograph for the New Technology Telescope (NTT), optimized
for transient ...and variable objects, covering a wide wavelength range from 350
to 2000 nm. SOXS is equipped with a calibration unit that will be used to
remove the instrument signatures and to provide wavelength calibration to the
data. The calibration unit will employ seven calibration lamps: a
quartz-tungsten-halogen and a deuterium lamp for the flat-field correction, a
ThAr lamp and four pencil-style rare-gas lamps for the wavelength calibration.
The light from the calibration lamps is injected into the spectrograph
mimicking the f/11 input beam of the NTT, by using an integrating sphere and a
custom doublet. The oversized illumination patch covers the length of the
spectrograph slit homogeneously, with $< 1\%$ variation. The optics also
supports the second mode of the unit, the star-simulator mode that emulates a
point source by utilizing a pinhole mask. Switching between the direct
illumination and pinhole modes is performed by a linear stage. A safety
interlock switches off the main power when the lamp box cover is removed,
preventing accidental UV exposure to the service personnel. All power supplies
and control modules are located in an electronic rack at a distance from the
telescope platform. In this presentation we describe the optical, mechanical,
and electrical designs of the SOXS calibration unit, and report the status of
development in which the unit is currently in the test and verification stage.
The SOXS Data-Reduction Pipeline Young, David R; Landoni, Marco; Smartt, Stephen J ...
arXiv (Cornell University),
12/2020
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
The SOXS is a dual-arm spectrograph (UV-VIS & NIR) and AC due to mounted on
the ESO 3.6m NTT in La Silla. Designed to simultaneously cover the optical and
NIR wavelength range from 350-2050 nm, the ...instrument will be dedicated to the
study of transient and variable events with many Target of Opportunity requests
expected.
The goal of the SOXS Data Reduction pipeline is to use calibration data to
remove all instrument signatures from the SOXS scientific data frames for each
of the supported instrument modes, convert this data into physical units and
deliver them with their associated error bars to the ESO SAF as Phase 3
compliant science data products, all within 30 minutes. The primary reduced
product will be a detrended, wavelength and flux calibrated, telluric corrected
1D spectrum with UV-VIS + NIR arms stitched together. The pipeline will also
generate QC metrics to monitor telescope, instrument and detector health.
The pipeline is written in Python 3 and has been built with an agile
development philosophy that includes adaptive planning and evolutionary
development. The pipeline is to be used by the SOXS consortium and the general
user community that may want to perform tailored processing of SOXS data. Test
driven development has been used throughout the build using `extreme' mock
data. We aim for the pipeline to be easy to install and extensively and clearly
documented.
Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) is a double-armed (UV-VIS, NIR) spectrograph designed
to be mounted at the ESO-NTT in La Silla, now in its Assembly Integration and
Verification (AIV) phase. The instrument is ...designed following a modular
approach so that each sub-system can be integrated in parallel before their
assembly at system level. INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova will deliver
the Common Path (CP) sub-system, which represents the backbone of the entire
instrument. In this paper, we describe the foreseen operation for the CP
alignment and we report some results already achieved, showing that we
envisaged the suitable setup and the strategy to meet the opto-mechanical
requirements.
