Search

We present here the development status of the NIR spectrograph of the Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) instrument, for the ESO/NTT telescope at La Silla (Chile). SOXS is a R~4,500 mean resolution spectrograph, with a simultaneously coverage from about 0.35 to 2.00 μm. It will be mounted at the Nasmyth focus of the NTT. The two UV-VIS-NIR wavelength ranges will be covered by two separated arms. The NIR spectrograph is a fully cryogenic echelle-dispersed spectrograph, working in the range 0.80-2.00 μm, equipped with a Hawaii H2RG IR array from Teledyne. The whole spectrograph will be cooled down to about 150 K (but the array at 40 K), to lower the thermal background, and equipped with a thermal filter to block any thermal radiation above 2.0 μm. In this work, we will show the advanced phase of integration of the NIR spectrograph.

The MCAO Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph (MAVIS), is a new instrument for ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The instrument will be installed at the Nasmyth focus of the UT4 telescope and is comprised of an imager and a spectrograph which will take advantage of the unprecedented angular resolution and sky coverage provided by LGS assisted MCAO correction at visible wavelengths. The Adaptive Optics Module (AOM) is the core engine of MAVIS, devoted to multi-conjugate wavefront sensing and correction, and designed to deliver a 30×30 arcsec2 corrected field of view to the scientific instruments. In this paper we focus on the optical design of the AOM, which has been optimized to perform several tasks including field de-rotation, atmospheric dispersion correction, and adaptive optics closed-loop operations. To maximize sky coverage, the system is designed to deliver a 2 arcmin field of view for the selection of up to 3 NGS for measurement of tip-tilt. The AOM module also includes a multiple LGS WFS for high-order wavefront measurements and two post-focal DMs for wide field turbulence compensation. The proposed design is the result of a trade-off study in which particular care has been devoted to satisfy performance and operational requirements, as well as modularity. We present here a complete description of the selected optical configuration with a summary of the performance analyses.

SOXS (Son Of X-Shooter) is a single object spectrograph, characterized by offering a wide simultaneous spectral coverage from U- to H-band, built by an international consortium for the 3.6-m ESO New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory, in the Southern part of the Chilean Atacama Desert. The consortium is focussed on a clear scientific goal: the spectrograph will observe all kind of transient and variable sources discovered by different surveys with a highly flexible schedule, updated daily, based on the Target of Opportunity concept. It will provide a key spectroscopic partner to any kind of imaging survey, becoming one of the premier transient follow-up instruments in the Southern hemisphere. SOXS will study a mixture of transients encompassing all distance scales and branches of astronomy, including fast alerts (such as gamma-ray bursts and gravitational waves), mid-term alerts (such as supernovae and X-ray transients), and fixed-time events (such as the close-by passage of a minor planet or exoplanets). It will also have the scope to observe active galactic nuclei and blazars, tidal disruption events, fast radio bursts, and more. Besides of the consortium programs on guaranteed time, the instrument is offered to the ESO community for any kind of astrophysical target. The project has passed the Final Design Review and is currently in manufacturing and integration phase. This paper describes the development status of the project., Proc SPIE Volume 11447, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VIII, 1144709,2020

The LBT (Large Binocular Telescope) located in Mount Graham near Tucson/Arizona at an altitude of about 3200m, is an innovative project being undertaken by institutions from Europe and USA. The structure of the telescope incorporates two 8.4-meter telescopes on a 14.4 center-to-center common mount. This configuration provides the equivalent collecting area of a 12m single-dish telescope. LINC-NIRVANA is an instrument to combine the light from both LBT primary mirrors in an imaging Fizeau interferometer. Many requirements must be fulfilled in order to get a good interferometric combination of the beams, being among the most important plane wavefronts, parallel input beams, homotheticity and zero optical path difference (OPD) required for interferometry. The philosophy is to have an internally aligned instrument first, and then align the telescope to match the instrument. The sum of different subsystems leads to a quite ambitious system, which requires a well-defined strategy for alignment and testing. In this paper I introduce and describe the followed strategy, as well as the different solutions, procedures and tools used during integration. Results are presented at every step.