Quality Control and
Data Processing

The SINFONI calibration scheme requires a careful match of interdependencies between raw and product calibration files. The calibration products have to be processed step by step; hence this scheme is called a calibration cascade.

• DARK (3 or more dark frames of matching DIT)
• FLAT (5 or more flat-field frames; in sets of lamp-on lamp-off pairs)
• WAVE (2 wavelength calibration frames; one with the arc lamp on, the other with the arc lamp off)
• LINE (24 linearity frames consisting of four frames obtained at six different DIT's (1, 9, 18, 27, 36, and 45 seconds)
• DIST (~75 distortion frames consisting of an illuminated fibre stepped north/south through all of the pseudo slitlets, plus 2 flats and 2 waves)
• STD (2 frames consisting of a telluric standard star and a sky frame)
• PSF (2 frames consisting of a PSF standard star and a sky frame)

The telluric standard stars and PSF stars are processed exactly like the science frames (i.e. all use the sinfoni pipeline routine sinfo_rec_jitter).

In the quick-look mode used on Paranal, the sinfoni pipeline uses a static set of fixed calibration products. In contrast, the calibration solutions processed by QC Garching are created from the most recent calibration data and respect the processing cascade that is outlined below. In combination with trending, scoring, and visual checks of product quality, this results in the optimum possible products.

A detailed desciption of SINFONI's association rules is given here.