Quality Control and
Data Processing

A complete set of calibrations consists of day-time calibrations (darks, biases, flats, optical distortion) and optional user defined on-the sky calibrations (e.g. PSF standard stars, telluric standard star.). The science template allows for science frames (tagged DPR.TYPE=OBJECT) and for OB-specific calibrations which are tagged SKY, OBJECT,CENTER and OBJECT,FLUX. All day-time, night time and OB-specific calibrations need to be processed in a certain order, that the products of a previously processing step are available for following steps in the calibration cascade. The SPHERE calibration scheme is composed of eight independent calibration cascades, for each mode one.

A graphical representation of all eight SPHERE calibration cascades can be found here.

Within the data reduction cascade, a subset of calibration types is supported by the data reduction pipeline. The supported calibration types generate product of which a subset contain quality control parameters useful to monitor the health of the three arms.