SCIENCE DATA: GENERAL

On Paranal, the quick-look pipelines make an effort to automatically reduce all science data. The reduction is performed using standard calibration solutions from a local calibration database which is refreshed every few months. Generally any pipeline processing on the site is done on a best-effort basis. Its purpose is to offer a quick look to assess data quality etc.

Until the end of P87 (September 2011), science data were processed by QC Garching with the best possible (certified) calibrations solutions. The products were ingested into the Science Archive and delivered to the PIs. This service has been terminated with the begin of October 2011.

For some instruments, science-grade data products are created by QC Garching, using certified pipelines. Currently these are 1D spectral data products from UVES (Echelle mode), XSHOOTER (Echelle mode), and GIRAFFE (Medusa MOS modes). See the QC pages for those instruments for more information.

AMBER Calibration data come in two main types : the static calibrations (Bad Pixel Map and Flat Field Map) which are typically taken once each period and calibrations which needs to be taken frequently and with the same instrument setup than the science data. These calibrations are the P2VM (Pixel to Visibility Matrix) and the astronomical calibrators. .

Science data are taken on sky and usually in a sequence CAL1-SCI1-CAL2-SCI2-CAL3. The format of the science data is identical to the format of teh astronomical calibrators and they are processed with the same recipe

INFORMATION, ACTUAL PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

The pipeline recipes are based on amdlib developped by JMMC.

Pipeline products from AMBER are stored as FITS binary table files using generalized Optical/IR interferometry conventions. Find informations about this format here.