SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) is an extreme adaptive optics system and coronagraphic facility feeding three science instruments: IRDIS, IFS, and ZIMPOL. The primary science goal of SPHERE is imaging, low-resolution spectroscopic, and polarimetric characterisation of extra-solar planetary systems. IRDIS, the infrared dual-band imager and spectrograph, provides classical imaging (CI), dual-band imaging (DBI), dual-polarisation imaging (DPI), and long-slit spectroscopy (LSS) between 0.95 – 2.3 µm.
The first data release covers 602 IRDIS imaging observations acquired between April 2019 and March 2020, i.e., ESO periods P103 and P104. The data were processed by the SPHERE Data Centre, a support service provided by the French community, which is jointly operated by OSUG/IPAG (Grenoble), PYTHEAS/LAM/CESAM (Marseille), OCA/Lagrange (Nice, France), Observatoire de Paris/LESIA (Paris), and Observatoire de Lyon.