SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) is an extreme adaptive optics system and coronagraphic facility feeding three science instruments: IRDIS, IFS, and ZIMPOL. The primary science goal of SPHERE is imaging, low-resolution spectroscopic, and polarimetric characterization of extra-solar planetary systems. IRDIS, the infrared dual-band imager and spectrograph provides classical imaging (CI), dual-band imaging (DBI), dual-polarization imaging (DPI), and long slit spectroscopy (LSS) between 0.95 – 2.3 µm.

The first data release covers 602 IRDIS imaging observations acquired between April 2019 and March 2020, i.e. ESO periods P103 and P104. The data were processed by the SPHERE Data Center, a support service provided by the French community, which is jointly operated by OSUG/IPAG (Grenoble), PYTHEAS/LAM/CESAM (Marseille), OCA/Lagrange (Nice, France), Observatoire de Paris/LESIA (Paris), and Observatoire de Lyon. Users interested in more advanced data products (application of various high-contrast data reduction techniques, or intermediate data products to apply their own algorithm), can download them from the SPHERE Data Center or DIVA+ database.

The science data products are available from the ESO Science Archive Facility, either from the web-based interactive Science Portal or via Table Access Protocol, along with comprehensive data release documentation. The DOI assigned to the data collection is 10.18727/archive/79.