Introducing¶
The Piccolo is a hardware instrument for recording the optical spectrum of light. The hardware includes a spectrometer (or two spectrometers on the Piccolo Doppio) and an optical fibre. Light input to the instrument is controlled by electronic shutters and fore-optics provide a weather-proof housing.
The Piccolo also includes a small computer, the Raspberry Pi, which controls the Piccolo hardware and acquires spectra. The Piccolo software on the Raspberry Pi can record spectra. It also allows the Piccolo to be controlled remotely from a remote laptop (or desktop computer) over a network link.
Online resources¶
- This documentation is available online, hosted by Read the Docs.
- Bitbucket is the online home of the Piccolo’s Python source code.
About the User Guide¶
The Piccolo User Guide covers the essential features of the Piccolo software:
- Installing the Piccolo software
- Plotting data acquired on the Piccolo
- Programming the Piccolo with Python
Hardware¶
The Piccolo hardware supports one or two optical spectrometers. The following models are supported.
| Manufacturer | Series | Supported models |
|---|---|---|
| Ocean Optics | Flame | Flame-S and Flame-T |
| Ocean Optics | HR | HR4000 |
| Ocean Optics | Maya2000 Pro | All in series |
| Ocean Optics | NIRQuest | NIRQuest512 |
| Ocean Optics | QEPro | All in series |
| Ocean Optics | USB | USB2000+ |
The Raspberry Pi is a miniature computer which runs an operating system, Raspbian, which is a variant of Linux.