This page provides informations about the AMBER raw data and the status of the AMBER pipeline.

Data from AMBER are stored as FITS binary table files using generalized Optical/IR interferometry conventions. Find informations about this format here. More details can also be found in this document.

The reduction of AMBER data at Paranal and at QC Garching is done in an automatic manner. All the raw data taken on a scientific object or an astronomical calibrator are processed by the pipeline. In some cases, the automatic pipeline can not reduced the raw files, in this case no pipeline products is produced. Find general information about ESO reduction pipelines here.

A set of raw data should includes:

• internal calibration files, optionnal spectral calibration files (used to calculate the P2VM),
• acquisition frames and injection adjustment frames,
• fringe-search files,
• observations.

The following table shows some of the main keywords for the different raw files

The category of the file is set with the DPR CATG keyword in the primary header of the fringe-track FITS file.

Two different types of files carry a DPR CATG=CALIB :

• Technical and detector calibrations
• all the files associated to an astronomical calibrator.

All the files with a DPR CATG=CALIB are not proprietary and will be available from the science archive.

Only the files associated with a science target carry a DPR CATG=SCIENCE. This includes the target acquisition, the fringe track files. The associated P2VM carries a DPR CATG=CALIB.

The raw data taken with the VLTI are processed twice :

• at the VLTI complex on Paranal, using a fully automatic mode, and allowing the astronomer to have a quick look at the data and for on-site quality control,
• at the headquaters in Garching. This processing is done on full nights and is optimized to choose the best calibrations. The quality of the results on the P2VM and on the astronomical calibrators is assessed. The science data taken in service mode are then processed. Each product is named following some rules (product_codes.html for the calibration files and using the time stamp of the first raw file processed for the science product).

As of now (October 2006) the pipeline delivered Visibilities for each baseline and each spectral bands for both the astronomical calibrators and the science object. These are calibrated with the P2VM, the science data are not calibrated with any astronomical calibration.

The pipeline supported modes for P80 are the data taken with the standard observation template : Obs_Std. The following table shows the type of files and the pipeline recipes used to reduce them. More details on the pipeline recipes can be found here. More on the file associations can be found here.

The delivered products are in format of ASCII files in the logs directory of the Data Package (association files, pipeline and association logs), and FITS files.