Archiving of the data

The data produced at ESO telescopes during each observing night, as well as their daytime calibrations, are stored in the ESO Archive. With the ESO Archive Query Form, users can obtain information on the observations done with ESO telescopes and their instruments.

All ESO scientific data are subjected to a proprietary period of one year since the date when they were distributed to the Principal Investigator, or since the date when they were obtained in the case of Visitor Mode observations. After the proprietary period, the data become public and anyone can retrieve them by means of an archive request. Calibration data are not subjected to any proprietary period and they can be requested as soon as they are available in the Archive.

The data obtained with the VLT are also sent to the Data Flow Operations Group, where the observations done in instrument modes supported by data reduction pipelines receive master calibration frames and are used to produce reduced data. A detailed quality assessment of the data is made by the Data Flow Operations Group beyond the quick-look quality classification made by the astronomer executing Service Mode observations as they are obtained.