TY - JOUR
T1 - SOXS spectrograph instrument control software
AU - Ricci, Davide
AU - Salasnich, Bernardo
AU - Baruffolo, Andrea
AU - Achrén, Jani
AU - Aliverti, Matteo
AU - Araiza-Durán, José A.
AU - Arcavi, Iair
AU - Asquini, Laura
AU - Battaini, Federico
AU - Ben-Ami, Sagi
AU - Bichkovsky, Alex
AU - Brucalassi, Anna
AU - Bruch, Rachel
AU - Cabona, Lorenzo
AU - Campana, Sergio
AU - Capasso, Giulio
AU - Cappellaro, Enrico
AU - Claudi, Riccardo
AU - Colapietro, Mirko
AU - Cosentino, Rosario
AU - D’Alessio, Francesco
AU - D’Avanzo, Paolo
AU - D’Orsi, Sergio
AU - Valle, Massimo Della
AU - Di Benedetto, Rosario
AU - Di Filippo, Simone
AU - Gal-Yam, Avishay
AU - Genoni, Matteo
AU - Díaz, Marcos Hernandez
AU - Hershko, Ofir
AU - Kotilainen, Jari
AU - Kuncarayakti, Hanindyo
AU - Landoni, Marco
AU - Li Causi, Gianluca
AU - Marty, Laurent
AU - Mattila, Seppo
AU - Munari, Matteo
AU - Oggioni, Luca
AU - Ventura, Hector Pérez
AU - Pariani, Giorgio
AU - Pignata, Giuliano
AU - Santhakumari, Kalyan Kumar Radhakrishnan
AU - Smartt, Stephen
AU - Rappaport, Michael
AU - Riva, Marco
AU - Rubin, Adam
AU - Savarese, Salvatore
AU - Schipani, Pietro
AU - Scuderi, Salvatore
AU - Stritzinger, Maximilian
AU - Vitali, Fabrizio
AU - Young, David
AU - Zanmar Sanchez, Ricardo
AU - Zins, Gerard
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International License. Use, distribution, or reproduction of this work in whole or in part in any medium is permitted for noncommercial purposes only, provided the work is not modified and the original work is properly cited, including the DOI.
PY - 2026/4/1
Y1 - 2026/4/1
N2 - Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) is a spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), recently installed at the New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. The main instrument goal consists of the characterization of transient sources, based on alerts. It covers from (partially) ultraviolet to visible and near-infrared bands, with a spectral resolution of R∼4500, using two separate, wavelength-optimized spectrographs. A scientific-grade visible camera, primarily intended for target acquisition, also provides a “light imaging” mode. We present the design of the SOXS Instrument Control Software, which is in charge of controlling all motors, calibration lamps, and detectors; monitoring sensors and components’ status; coordinating the execution of exposures; and implementing all observation, calibration, and maintenance procedures. Given the extensive experience of the SOXS consortium in the development of instruments for the ESO Very Large Telescope, we decided to base the design of the control system on the same standards, both for hardware and software control. We illustrate the control network, the instrument functions and detectors to be controlled, the overall design of the SOXS Instrument Software and its main components. Then, we provide details about the control software for the most SOXS-specific components and peculiar features: the piezoelectric tip–tilt corrector used for active compensation of mechanical flexures of the instrument, the cryogenic piezoelectric slit exchanger for the near-infrared spectrograph, the co-rotator monitoring system, and the control of the commercial-off-the-shelf-based imaging camera.
AB - Son Of X-Shooter (SOXS) is a spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), recently installed at the New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. The main instrument goal consists of the characterization of transient sources, based on alerts. It covers from (partially) ultraviolet to visible and near-infrared bands, with a spectral resolution of R∼4500, using two separate, wavelength-optimized spectrographs. A scientific-grade visible camera, primarily intended for target acquisition, also provides a “light imaging” mode. We present the design of the SOXS Instrument Control Software, which is in charge of controlling all motors, calibration lamps, and detectors; monitoring sensors and components’ status; coordinating the execution of exposures; and implementing all observation, calibration, and maintenance procedures. Given the extensive experience of the SOXS consortium in the development of instruments for the ESO Very Large Telescope, we decided to base the design of the control system on the same standards, both for hardware and software control. We illustrate the control network, the instrument functions and detectors to be controlled, the overall design of the SOXS Instrument Software and its main components. Then, we provide details about the control software for the most SOXS-specific components and peculiar features: the piezoelectric tip–tilt corrector used for active compensation of mechanical flexures of the instrument, the cryogenic piezoelectric slit exchanger for the near-infrared spectrograph, the co-rotator monitoring system, and the control of the commercial-off-the-shelf-based imaging camera.
KW - Son Of X-Shooter
KW - astronomy
KW - imaging
KW - instrument control software
KW - software
KW - spectroscopy
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105043795555
U2 - 10.1117/1.JATIS.12.2.024005
DO - 10.1117/1.JATIS.12.2.024005
M3 - Article
SN - 2329-4124
VL - 12
JO - Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems
JF - Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems
IS - 2
M1 - 024005
ER -