Calibration data for SINFONI are taken for two purposes:

• assess the instrument status
• reduce science data, take out the instrumental signatures in science frames

Generally SINFONI calibration data are taken as daytime calibrations. Telluric standard stars and Point Spread Function Calibration stars (PSF-stars) are generally observed during the night, as described by the calibration plan (See User Manual for details). On request of the user, also nighttime calibrations can be obtained as part of the Observing Block which generates the SCIENCE data ("attached calibrations").

All calibration data taken in SINFONI are processed by QC Garching to obtain calibration solutions. These solutions come as

• calibration product fits file frames (e.g. dark or lampflat frames)
• calibration product fits tables (e.g. slitlet position tables)

The following types of raw calibration data exist for the SINFONI IFU mode

frame DPR TYPE Purpose typical number taken per night and setting DARK DARK detector status, dark level, RON, hot (high dark current) pixels 3 LAMP FLAT FLAT,LAMP fixed pattern noise, vignetting, bad pixel 10 WAVE WAVE,LAMP wavelength calibration, position of slitlets 2 DISTORTION DISTORTION,FIBRE,NS DISTORTION,WAVE,TECH DISTORTION,FLAT,TECH optical distortion, distances of slitlets ~50 2 2 LINEARITY LAMP,LINEARITY Linearity, bad (non-linear) pixels, fixed pattern noise 10 STANDARD STAR STD or SKY,STD standard stars for telluric features 2 PSF PSF-CALIBRATOR or SKY,PSF-CALIBRATOR PSF, Strehl ratio 2

Recipes and products

The following SINFONI calibration products are created from raw calibration files (click here for a complete overview of calibration files and recipes):

Naming scheme

After production and certification, the calibration products are renamed after a scheme which includes type, creation data and relevant SINFONI setting. .

SINFONI calibration
cascade (9K)

The calibration of SINFONI science frames requires a cascading scheme where the mutual dependencies of products and raw frames have to be respected. Some products (dark, distortion) can be produced from raw files only, but most products require the prior generation of other calibration products. The proper sequence of all these production steps is called the calibration cascade.

Within that cascade, all products are checked with respect to their quality and their relationship in time. This means e.g. that a master flat is not only generated using an arbitrary quality-checked order table, but that specific table is chosen which at the moment of processing is closest in time.

All products created by QC Garching follow the calibration cascade.

Static calibrations include a reference arc line table and a static bad pixel map (for the engineering array only)

SINFONI Pipeline problems are documented under on the ServiceMode page.