XMS is a multi-channel wide-field spectrograph designed for the prime focus of the 3.5m Calar-Alto telescope. The instrument is composed by four quadrants, each of which contains a spectrograph channel. An innovative mechanical design -at concept/preliminary stage- has been implemented to: 1) Minimize the separation between the channels to achieve maximal filling factor; 2) Cope with the very constraining space and mass overall requirements; 3) Achieve very tight alignment tolerances; 4) Provide lens self-centering under large temperature excursions; 5) Provide masks including 4000 slits (edges thinner than 100\mu). An overview of this extremely challenging mechanical design is here presented.
@article{arxiv.1008.1227,
title = {Extreme Multiplex Spectrograph: An efficient mechanical design for high-demanding requirements},
author = {S. Becerril and K. Meisenheimer and C. M. Dubbeldam and R. Content and R. R. Rohloff and F. Prada and T. Shanks and R. Sharples},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1008.1227},
year = {2010}
}