Quality Control and
Data Processing

The names of all calibration pipeline products follow a certain naming convention. This is done to have human-readable rather than technical file names. The naming scheme has been chosen to have the type of product, its date of creation, and its pipeline-relevant setup values recognizable in the product name.

The general format of user-oriented product file names is the same for all VLT/VLTI instruments.

On the archive interface, the master calibrations can be associated to science files and downloaded. Then they carry technical filenames (the archive filename ARCFILE). In order to rename them to the original filenames, search for the fits header key ORIGFILE. The naming scheme of ORIGFILE is described here.

Instrument code

All product names start with two letters which are specific for the instrument. For instance: UVES product names start with 'UV', VISIR names with 'VR'.

Product category

The full value of the product category is coded in the FITS header key HIERARCH.ESO.PRO.CATG. A short form of this tag is encoded in four characters being unique per instrument:

1st letter	M or P	calibration product
	G	general (static) calibration product
2nd to 4th letter	...	type of product

Calibration products come in two flavours: dynamic ones (being updated regularly, short validity), and static ones (never or rarely updated). The static ones are also called 'general' because they often are not derived from raw data (like e.g. a line catalogue).

Both product types are stored in the archive and are available for download through the calSelector service.

Naming convetion for Calibrations products

All UVES pipeline product names start with "UV_".

Dynamic calibrations.

The following types of dynamic calibration products of UVES exist:

MODE	TYPE OF FILE	PRO_CATG*	UVES MODE**	VERSIONING?
MBIA	master bias	MASTER_BIAS_	ECH, MOS	no
MDRK	master dark	MASTER_DARK_	ECH, MOS	yes
MFLT	master flat (ordinary FF lamp)	MASTER_FLAT_	ECH	yes
MDFT	master deuterium flat (deuterium lamp, 346nm settings only)	MASTER_DFLAT_	ECH	yes
MIFT	master I2 flat (FF3 lamp plus iodine absorption cell, 600nm settings only)	MASTER_IFLAT_	ECH	yes
PDRS	setup table for data reduction system	DRS_SETUP_	ECH	no
PORD	order table	ORDER_TABLE_	ECH	no
PBKG	background table	BACKGR_TABLE_	ECH	no
PGUE	line guess table	LINE_GUESS_TABLE_	ECH	no
PLIN	line table	LINE_TABLE_	ECH	yes
PRSP	response curve from a single standard star measurement	INSTR_RESPONSE_	ECH	yes
PEFC	efficiency curve from a single standard star measurement	EFFICIENCY_TABLE_	ECH	yes
MRSP	master response curve (created from several individual response curves)	MASTER_RESPONSE_	ECH	N/A
MSFT	master slit flat	MASTER_SFLAT_	MOS	yes
MSxx	other slit flat products	SLIT_FF_xxx_ (see below)	MOS	yes
MFxx	master fibre flat products	FIB_FF_xxx_ (see below)	MOS	yes
PODF	order definition frame	FIB_ORDEF_	MOS	no
POGU	guess order definiton table	FIB_ORD_GUE_	MOS	no
PORD	order definition table	FIB_ORDEF_TABLE_	MOS	yes
PGUE	guess line table	FIN_LIN_GUESS_	MOS	no
PLIN	line table	FIB_LINE_TABLE_	MOS	yes

*For the complete value of PRO.CATG, the designation of the chip has to be added: =BLUE, REDL, or REDU **ECH: UVES-Echelle (i.e. usage as single-object spectrograph); MOS: UVES-Fibre aka FLAMES-UVES (i.e. usage as multi-object spectrograph)

Date of origin, version

The date of origin is identical to the date of the raw data measurement. It is coded as, e.g., 011015 for Oct 15, 2001. The version of a file is indicated by capital letters always starting with A. Versioning is supported for certain types of files only (see table above). In all other cases, only one version per day is created (version is always A).

Instrumental parameters

Those parameters which are relevant for the specific type of calibration product are included in its name. The following schemes are used:

PARAMETER CODE	USED FOR FILE TYPES	UVES MODE
CCD_BIN	MBIA, MDRK	ECH, MOS
CCD_WLEN_MODE_BIN_SLTW	PDRS, PLIN, MFLT, MDFT, MIFT	ECH
CCD_WLEN_MODE_BIN	PORD, PBKG, PGUE, PEFC, PRSP	ECH
CCD_WLEN	MRSP	ECH
CCD_WLEN_MODE_SISIMCAL_PLPLATE	MFxx, MSxx, PDRS, PORD, PLIN	MOS
CCD_WLEN_MODE_PLPLATE	PGUE, PODF, POGU	MOS
CCD_WLEN_MODE	MSFT	MOS

where:

PARAMETER	EXPLANATION	VALUES
CCD	CCD designation	BLUE, REDL, REDU
WLEN	wavelength	in nm (e.g. 580)
MODE	observation mode (INS.MODE keyword)	bl: blue arm; re: red arm; d1: dichroic#1, d2: dichroic#2; fi: fibre mode
BIN	detector binning (x times y)	1x1, 2x2, 1x2, 2x3
SLTW	slit width in arcsec * 10	(e.g. 0.5 arcs are coded as 05, and 2.1 arcs as 21)
MOS only:
PLATE	observation plate	1 or 2
SIMCAL	SimCal mode	0: calibrations for science that do not use the simultaneous calibration fibre; 1: for science that use the simultaneous calibration fibre

is set according to the value of the INS.SLIT3.MODE keyword (from the fits headers): 6FIB or 8FIB means SIMCAL=0, 7+1FIB means SIMCAL=1.

Extension

All products generated by the pipeline have extension .fits.

Master products from slit and fibre flats (UVES-MOS)

There is a large number of pipeline products that are derived from combining slit and fibre flat fields. From Period 74 on (i.e. from 1 October 2004), these products are coded with MSxx or MFxx:

CODE	TYPE OF FILE	PRO_CATG*	DATA CUBE?
MFCO	common data of fibre flat field set	FIB_FF_COM_	no
MFNO	normalisation data of fibre flat fields	FIB_FF_NOR_	no
MFNS	variance for FIB_FF_NOR	FIB_FF_NSG_	no
MFDT	normalised, cleaned fibre flat fields	FIB_FF_DTC_	yes
MFSG	variance for FIB_FF_DTC	FIB_FF_SGC_	yes
MFBP	bad-pixel mask for FIB_FF_DTC	FIB_FF_BPC_	yes
MSCO	common data of slit flat field set	SLIT_FF_COM_	no
MSNO	normalisation data of slit flat field set	SLIT_FF_NOR_	no
MSDT	data cube of nomalised slit flat field frames	SLIT_FF_DTC_	yes
MSSG	variances for SLIT_FF_DTC	SLIT_FF_SGC_	yes
MSBP	bad-pixel mask for SLIT_FF_DTC	SLIT_FF_BPC_	yes
MSBN	boundaries for SLIT_FF_DTC	SLIT_FF_BNC_	yes

Naming convention for Science products (IDP)

All UVES pipeline product names start with "UV_".
This section is valid for UVES IDPs (see here), MOS are excluded here.

Naming scheme

The naming scheme has the product type, the ID of the observation block, a time stamp, and pipeline-relevant parameter values all recognisable from its name. The general scheme is:
UV____. .

Type of product

The product type is given by the fits key HIERARCH.ESO.PRO.CATG. A short form of this is coded in the name using a four character scheme:

1st letter	S	science product file
2nd to 4th letter	...	type of product

The following types of calibration products presently exist:

CODE	TYPE OF FILE	PRO_CATG*	UVES MODE**
SRED	reduced spectrum	RED_SCI_POINT_CCD, RED_SCI_EXTND_CCD, RED_SCI_SLICER_CCD	ECH
SERR	errorbars for reduced spectrum	ERRORBAR_SCI_POINT_CCD, ERRORBAR_SCI_EXTND_CCD, ERRORBAR_SCI_SLICER_CCD	ECH
SORD	position and FWHM information per order	ORDER_TRACE_CCD	ECH
SCRM	cosmic ray mask table	CRMASK_CCD	ECH
SFLX	flux-calibrated science spectrum	FLUXCAL_SCIENCE_CCD	ECH
SFXE	errorbars for flux-calibrated spectrum	FLUXCAL_ERRORBAR_CCD	ECH
SE2D	extracted 2D spectrum	EXT_2D_SCI_EXTND_CCD	ECH
SF2D	flat-fielded extracted 2D spectrum	FF2D_SCI_EXTND_CCD	ECH
SW2D	wavelength-calibrated, flat-fielded 2D spectrum	WCAL2D_SCI_EXTND_CCD	ECH
SX2D	final flux-calibrated 2D spectrum	FLUXCAL_2D_SCI_EXTND_CCD	ECH

*For the complete value of PRO.CATG, the designation of the chip has to be added: CCD=BLUE, REDL, or REDU **ECH: UVES-Echelle (i.e. usage as single-object spectrograph)

OB ID

The ID of the observation block that has been used to measure the raw science frame.

Time stamp

The time stamp has the form YEAR-MONTH-DAYT:MINUTE:SECOND.MILLISEC. It has the same value that is used in the archive filename of the raw file, e.g. 2005-01-18T04:45:19.435.

Instrumental parameters

The instrumental parameters for the science frames are the same as for the calibrations in order to identify matching files.