The CRIRES data reduction challenges

Abstract

CRIRES is a cryogenic high-resolution pre-dispersed infrared echelle spectrograph, developed by ESO. It provides a resolving power of up to 100,000 between 1 and 5 μm. Science operations with CRIRES will start from P80 on, and the data reduction pipeline is in a rather advanced state. It has been used during commissioning and Science Verification runs to evaluate the sensitivities and the stability of the instrument in the different modes. Beside the usual infrared specific calibration difficulties, the high resolution capabilities of the instrument were particularly challenging [3] when it came to the development of a precise, robust and automatic wavelength calibration. This contribution gives an overview of the different tasks achieved by the CRIRES pipeline, and concentrates on the whole wavelength calibration strategy including the physical model development, a new correlation method, and the problems linked to the instrument's high resolution. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.