Version 6 of the ESO Science Data Products standard is now published. It is a complete revision and restructuring of the previously published version available on the ESO Phase 3 web site. It now integrates the information published as separate addenda and in the Phase 3 frequently asked questions also. A major effort has been devoted to improve the readability and clarity of the text. Errors and typos have been corrected. The new version of the standard can be downloaded as PDF document.

The Science Data Products standard specifies the structure and data format that reduced data products must comply with for successful completion of Phase 3 and integration into the ESO archive. The target audience consists of 1) principal investigators and their collaborators who return reduced data products resulting from ESO/non-ESO observations for public release to the astronomical community through the ESO archive, 2) ESO scientists involved in the QC process or in specific reprocessing projects, 3) instruments scientists and pipeline developers for the new and existing ESO instruments, 4) archive users who need to understand the structure and format of the science data products they intend to use for their own science.

The corresponding on-line data verification service to check the compliance of format and provenance with respect to the SDP standard has been updated to version 6. How to access this service from the Release Manager is documented in the Phase 3 instructions. A detailed summary of the implemented checks is available here.