The most recently installed instrument at Paranal, the ESO Planet-finder instrument SPHERE, underwent its last commissioning run during 05 – 15 October 2014. SPHERE saw first light on 04 May 2014 (see the Release) and was followed by three periods of commissioning in May, July and August 2014.
Commissioning of SPHERE
Published: 21 Oct 2014
This last commissioning period was mostly focused on the final preparation, testing and qualification of the operations-support software, in order that it meets the requirements set for the instrument users, operations and archive systems. Most of the technical time was spent on functional tests, fine tuning of sub-systems (e.g., the atmospheric dispersion correctors, template running times and observation overheads) and staff training, in preparation for the Science Verification period scheduled in early December. A considerable effort was also put into characterizing how Paranal's meteo conditions affect the performance of the SPHERE adaptive optics system.
The commissioning work accomplished over the past six months has been tremendous and the instrument performance is now within specifications. Integrating SPHERE into VLT operations, and maintaining its performance, are still challenging tasks to ensure the instrument is ready for the start of operations in April 2015.