This page is the CRIRES pipeline page with information about CRIRES data and pipeline processing.

Raw data are selected, associated, and inserted into a reduction mechanism which produces calibration products, science products, and Quality Control information. This mechanism is the CRIRES data processing pipeline. It is operational since the start of Service Mode observations.

The CRIRES data reduction pipeline can be downloaded form the VLT instrument pipelines page.

The main functionalities of the CRIRES pipeline are:

• create calibration products,
• reduce science frames,
• extract Quality Control (QC) information from the data.

DFO Garching creates:

• calibration products from raw calibration data, 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 QC checks and trending;
• reduced science data for Service Mode nights. For SM programmes, DFO Garching runs the pipeline on all science raw data, using the best available, quality-checked master calibration data.

CRIRES SCIENCE data have been processed by the pipeline with the best available calibration data. Please note that ESO is not assuming any responsibility in respect to the usefulness of the reduced data. The adopted reduction strategy may not be suitable for the scientific purpose of the observations.

Find the description of CRIRES data processing and pipeline recipes here:

CRIRES pipeline
calibration
science reduction

OPERATIONS

There are two instances of the CRIRES data reduction pipeline:

• at the UT1 = Antu telescope on Paranal, running in automatic mode,
• at HQ Garching, run by the Quality Control Group 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, as they arrive from the instrument. It reduces science data, using pre-manufactured standard sets of calibration products. It is not tuned to obtain the best possible results.

The optimized mode is the mode, which uses all data of a night, including the daytime calibrations. The calibration data are sorted and grouped according to their dependencies. Master calibration data are created. Their quality is checked. The certified, closest-in-time products are finally associated to the science data of a night. This is the way all calibration data in supported modes are processed by DFO Garching, as are all science data from Service Mode programmes.

All settings offered for Service Mode are pipeline supported.

QC Garching processes the following CRIRES data:

• all calibration data, both in Service and Visitor Mode;
• all science data taken in Service Mode.
  

Raw data. The CRIRES detector is a 4x1 mosaic of 4 Aladdin III arrays, each with 1024x1024 pixels. Only the lower 512 pixels of each array are read out so that the total mosaic consists of 4x1024x512 pixels. The pixel size is 27 microns. A fifth Aladdin III detector is used in the slit viewer. The arrays are read out using standard ESO IRACE controllers with 64 channels (4x16) for the science arrays and 32 channels for the slit viewer, respectively.

Extensions. Raw calibration and science data come as FITS files with one primary header unit (HDU) and four extensions. The primary HDU has all keywords necessary to identify the observation and the state of the telescope and the instrument; the data part is empty. Pixel data are stored in the extensions, one extension for each array.

Acquisition frames have only a primary HDU containing keywords and the slit viewer image.

Products. Pipeline products have varying formats. Wherever appropriate, also product files have four extensions with the relevant product data for each array (either pixel data or fits tables).

Runs performed in Service Mode receive a set of DVDs containing

• all raw science data,
• reduced science data,
• associated calibration products,
• associated raw calibration data,
• listings and logs,
• QC reports and OB reports.

  SM package