The reduction of UVES data at QC Garching is done in a semi-automatic manner: raw data are selected and inserted into a reduction mechanism which produces

• calibration products and
• reduced science data.

This mechanism is the UVES reduction pipeline.

The UVES pipeline Data Reduction Software (DRS) has been implemented around the UVES context of MIDAS (which is an evolved version of the ECHELLE context). It is designed to automatically reduce point source object spectra from raw frames to order extraction and final order merging.

The UVES pipeline is exportable. Find details about ordering, downloads etc. here. Find here a Users' Manual. Find general information about ESO reduction pipelines here.

Find the description of calibration processing, science reduction and recipes here.

There are two instances of the UVES reduction pipeline:

• at the KUEYEN telescope on Paranal, running in automatic mode,
• at HQ Garching run by the Quality Control Team in the optimized mode.

The automatic mode is used for quick look purposes and for on-site quality control. It processes all raw data sequentially, i.e. as they arrive from the instrument. It produces calibration products and reduced science data, but will usually fail to obtain the best possible results. It provides results for all standard and many non-standard UVES settings.

The optimized mode is the mode, which becomes possible when all data of a night have been collected, including the daytime calibrations. Then the calibration data are sorted and assessed independently of their timestamp. The best possible master calibration data are created. Their quality is checked. They are finally applied to the science data of a night. This is the way all calibration data in supported modes are reduced by QC Garching, as are all science data from Service Mode programmes.

The UVES pipelines installed in Garching and on Paranal support all four flavours of UVES SCIENCE data: "ECHELLE", "ECHELLE,ABSORPTION-CELL", "ECHELLE,SLICER", and "ECHELLE,ABSORPTION-CELL,SLICER". "ECHELLE" and "ECHELLE,ABSORPTION-CELL" observations are reduced using optimum extraction, "ECHELLE,SLICER" and "ECHELLE,ABSORPTION-CELL,SLICER" with average extraction.

QC Garching processes the following UVES data:

• all calibration data taken in UVES standard settings, no matter whether Service or Visitor Mode;
• all science data taken in UVES standard settings taken in Service Mode. Since Period 70, this includes also image slicer data.
  

The main functionalities of the UVES pipeline are:

• create master calibration data,
• reduce science frames,
• provide QC1 parameters.

QC Garching creates

• master calibration data from raw calibration data taken in standard settings, both for Visitor Mode and Service Mode nights. The raw data are stored in the ESO Archive and are public. They are assessed and selected in terms of their quality and used for QC1 checks and trending;
• reduced science data for Service Mode nights. For SM programmes, QC Garching runs the pipeline on all science raw data taken in UVES echelle standard settings, using the best available, quality-checked master calibration data.

Programmes performed in Service Mode receive a set of CD ROMs (or DVDs) which contains

• all raw science data,
• reduced science data,
• suitable calibration data (both raw and master),
• listings and logs,
• QC1 reports.

Raw UVES frames come in the following CCD formats :

Apart from 1x1 binning, there is also 1x2, 2x2 and 2x3 binning possible. Remember that pipeline processing is only done on 1x1 and 2x2 binnings.

CCD formats are described here.

Master calibration files (master BIAS, master FLAT) have the prescan and overscan regions chopped off. Master files for the red arm come in twins for either of the red CCD. Usually the CCDs are called BLUE, REDU = red upper, and REDL = red lower. All master files are rotated by 90 degrees. The red masters are in addition flipped. Blue 1x1 binning master files have the format 3000x2048 px, red master files 4096x2048 px. For 2x2 binings, divide these numbers by 2.

Raw calibration files, raw science files, and master calibration files, have the following approximate sizes in MB: