Quality Control and
Data Processing

A complete set of KMOS calibrations consists of dark exposures, flat-fields, arc-lamps, (optional) twilight flats, and telluric standard stars. They need to be processed in a certain order.

The darks are processed first into a master dark and a badpixel map. Processing of flats requires the badpixel map from the darks and results in an updated badpixel map, a master flat, and the localization of the slitlets on each detector. The complete output from the flat-field recipe is needed for the arc-lamp exposures. These give the wavelength solution for each slitlet. Twilight sky flats can be used to correct for illumination variations between different IFUs and between the slices of each IFU. Processing requires a master dark, a master flat, and the solutions for slitlet positions and wavelength calibration. Finally, processing of telluric standards requires a master flat, the solutions for slitlet positions and wavelength calibration, and an optional illumination correction.

A graphical representation of the KMOS calibration cascade can be found here.