The Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument (SPHERE) on VLT UT3 was commissioned in May – October 2014. Selected stellar targets were observed to demonstrate the capabilities of the instrument. The data are packaged by science targets with sets of matching calibration data and are available from the SPHERE commissioning page.
Release of SPHERE Commissioning Data
Published: 20 Mar 2017
Data from the three SPHERE instrument modes – Integral Field Spectrograph (IRDIFS), InfraRed Dual-band Imager and Spectrograph (IRDIS) and Zurich imaging polarimeter (ZIMPOL) – are included for HR4796 (IRDIS), AU Mic (IRDIS), GJ758 (IRDIS), PZ Tel and HD1160 (IRDIS, IRDIFS, and ZIMPOL), R Aqr (ZIMPOL) and an astrometric field in 47 Tuc (IRDIS). Further details with links to publications from these data can be found here.
SPHERE ZIMPOL image of R Aqr. See Schmid et al. 2017, A&A, in press (DOI).