SPHERE

During the successful commissioning runs of the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument (SPHERE) at VLT UT3 in May, July, August and October 2014, selected stellar targets were observed to demonstrate the capabilities of the instrument in its three modes – Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS); InfraRed Dual-band Imager and Spectrograph (IRDIS); Zurich imaging polarimeter (ZIMPOL), find the best observing strategies and optimize the performance of the data reduction pipeline.

The SPHERE commissioning data is packaged by science targets, independantly from the date of observation, with packaged sets of matching calibration data.

Alternatively files can be selected in the usual way from the Science Archive Facilty under Programme ID 60.A-9249. In order to retrieve the calibration data for a given set of files, the CalSelector option can be specified on the Archive Request page. A set of pipeline recipes for reduction of SPHERE data has been released.

Access to raw science and calibration files

The raw and calibration data for each target have been packaged and can be accessed at the links.

HR4796 (star with an inclined debris disk) with IRDIS broad-band

HR4796 was observed during Commissioning 1 on 2014-05-19 with IRDIS in the BB_H filter:
Science files | Calibration files

The data were published in Milli et al. (2017).

AU Mic (star with an edge-on debris disk) with IRDIS

AU Mic was observed with IRDIS in broad-band J during Commissioning 2 on 2014-08-11:
Science files | Calibration files

The data were published in Boccaletti et al. (2015).

GJ758 (main-sequence star with a brown dwarf companion) with IRDIS dual-band

GJ758 and its companion GJ758B were observed in four narrow band filters across the Y to K-band.

The data were published in Vigan et al. (2016).

PZ Tel and HD1160 (stars with brown dwarf companions) with IRDIS, IRDIFS, and ZIMPOL

PZ Tel and HD1160 were observed with all modes in various broad and narrow band filters:

The data were published in Maire et al. (2016).

R Aqr (symbiotic binary system with jet) with ZIMPOL

R Aqr was observed with ZIMPOL both in imaging and polarimetry:

The data were published in Schmid et al. (2017).

Astrometric field in 47 Tuc with IRDIS

A field in the Galactic globular cluster 47 Tuc (NGC 104) was observed with IRDIS in each commissioning period and at the beginning of Science Verification (SV):

The data were published in Maire et al. (2016b).

HR8799 (star with 4 giant planets) with IRDIS and IRDIFS

HR8799 was observed during Commissioning 2 and 3 with IRDIS alone with broad-band filters and with IRDIFS in the modes from Y to J and Y to H:

The data were published in Zurlo et al. 2016.

If any of these data are used for publication, please acknowledge that the results are based on public data released from the SPHERE commissioning observations at the VLT Melipal (UT3) telescope under Programmes ID 60.A-9249(A), 60.A-9249(B), 60.A-9249(C) and 60.A-9249(D) (Commissioning 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively).