X-shooter
User Manual
Doc:
Issue
Date
Page
VLT-MAN-ESO-12000-0115
1
01.03.2009
8 of 60
ESO, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
1.1
Scope
The X-shooter User Manual provides extensive information on the technical characteristics of
the instrument, its performances, observing and calibration procedures and data reduction.
1.2
X-shooter in a nutshell
X-shooter is a single target spectrograph for the Cassegrain focus of one of the VLT UTs
covering in a single exposure the spectral range from the UV to the K band. The spectral
format is fixed. The instrument is designed to maximize the sensitivity in the spectral range
through the splitting in three arms with optimized optics, coatings, dispersive elements and
detectors. It operates at intermediate resolutions (R=4000-14000, depending on wavelength
and slit width) sufficient to address quantitatively a vast number of astrophysical applications
while working in a background-limited S/N regime in the regions of the spectrum free from
strong atmospheric emission and absorption lines. A 3D CAD view of the instrument
attached to the telescope is shown on Figure 1. Main instrument characteristics are
summarized in Table 1.
X-shooter was built by a Consortium involving institutes from Denmark, Italy, The
Netherlands, France and ESO. Name of the institutes and their respective contributions are
given in Table 2.
1.3
Shortcuts to most relevant facts for proposal preparation
•
The fixed
spectral format
of X-shooter: see Table 9 on page 23
•
Spectral resolution
as a function of slit width: see Table 10 on page 24
•
Information on the
IFU
: see page 13
•
Information on
limiting magnitudes
in the continuum: see Section 2.3.3 on page 24
•
Information on
observing modes
: see section 3.1 on page 27
•
Observing strategy and
sky subtraction
: see Section 3.3 on page 28
•
Overhead
computation: see Section 3.4 on page 30
Table 2: collaborating institutes and their contributions
Collaborating institutes
Contribution
Copenhagen University
Observatory
Backbone unit, UVB spectrograph, Mechanical
design and FEA, Control electronics
ESO
Project Management and Systems Engineering,
Detectors,
final
system
integration,
commissioning, logistics
Paris-Meudon Observatory,
Paris VII University
Integral Field Unit, Data Reduction Software
INAF - Observatories of Brera,
Catania, Trieste and Palermo
UVB and VIS spectrograph, Instrument Control
Software, optomechanical design.
Astron, Universities of
Amsterdam and Nijmegen
NIR spectrograph, contribution to Data
Reduction Software
