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VISIR:
Quality Control

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GENERAL

The Quality Control Group in Garching is in the process of developing quality checks of the VISIR data. They will be provided once VISIR becomes operational (Period 75). These checks are part of the Quality Control (QC) process. They are executed on raw data as well as on pipeline-processed data.

The QC checks consist of

  • Quality Control Level 0 (QC0, ambient observation constraints)
  • Quality Control Level 1 (QC1, per pipeline product)
  • trending (parameters as a function of time)

The following type of QC products are provided

  • QC1 parameters of pipeline processed calibration product (master calibration). These single numerical values should be eventualy accessible from a local database in plain ascii format.
  • QC1 plots showing the most important properties as a function of time.
  • Trending plots of several QC1 parameters, showing the long term behaviour of individual instrument properties. These plots will be available in gif and ps format.

QUALITY CONTROL LEVEL 0

QC0 involves checks if the user-defined observational constraints were met during the observation. The QC0 checks are done on raw data.

The service mode (SM) observer receives a QC0 report which lists all the programme-specific science files, their user-defined constraints (as read from the OB Repository which was filled from P2PP), and the actual QC0 parameters during observation (as read from the Ambient Database which is fed from the Ambient Site Monitor).

Furthermore, the user also receives an OB status report which contains, per OB, the assessment by the on-site staff of the quality of the raw data.

The data are checked for the following constraints:

  • airmass,
  • moon distance,
  • fractional lunar ilumination (FLI),
  • seeing.

Find more information about QC0 reports here.

QUALITY CONTROL LEVEL 1

Quality Control Level 1 consists of quality checks on pipeline-processed data.

Parts of the QC1 parameters are provided by the VISIR pipeline in qc.paf files as well as file headers, others are intended to be measured by post-pipeline procedures, on master calibration files and reduced files. The purpose of measuring QC1 parameters is:

  • to assess the quality of calibration products
  • to compare with expected/nominal values
  • to assess the performance of the instrument
  • to monitor efficiency of master creation process

The result of the QC1 process affects decision whether master creation data are certified or rejected as well as assessing quality of the reduction process.

All master calibration data created by QC Garching are quality-checked. They are also inspected for "unusual" effects like overexposure, misalignment of gratings etc.

Find access to the VISIR QC1 and trending site here.

TRENDING

Trending is monitoring QC1 parameters over time (e.g. effective resolution as function of time). Investigating the mutual relations of QC1 parameters is also part of trending. Find access to the VISIR QC1 and trending site here.

 


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