The VVDS Data-Reduction Pipeline: Introducing VIPGI, the VIMOS Interactive Pipeline and Graphical Interface
Abstract
The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VVDS), designed to measure 150,000 galaxy redshifts, requires a dedicated data reduction and analysis pipeline to process in a timely fashion the large amount of spectroscopic data being produced. This requirement has lead to the development of the VIMOS Interactive Pipeline and Graphical Interface (VIPGI), a new software package designed to simplify to a very high degree the task of reducing astronomical data obtained with VIMOS (Visible Multi-Object Spectrograph), the imaging spectrograph built by the VIRMOS Consortium for the European Southern Observatory and mounted on Unit 3 (Melipal) of the VLT (Very Large Telescope) at Paranal Observatory (Chile). VIPGI provides the astronomer with specially designed VIMOS data-reduction functions, a VIMOS-centric data organizer, and dedicated data browsing and plotting tools, which can be used to verify the quality and accuracy of the various stages of the data-reduction process. The quality and accuracy of the data-reduction pipeline are comparable to those obtained using well-known IRAF tasks, but the speed of the data-reduction process is significantly increased, because of the dedicated nature of VIPGI. In this paper we discuss the details of the multiobject spectroscopy (MOS) data-reduction pipeline that has been implemented in VIPGI, as applied to the reduction of some 20,000 VVDS spectra, quantitatively assessing the accuracy of the various reduction steps. We also provide a more general overview of VIPGI capabilities, a tool that can be used for the reduction of any kind of VIMOS data.
- Publication:
-
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- Pub Date:
- November 2005
- DOI:
- 10.1086/496937
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0409248
- Bibcode:
- 2005PASP..117.1284S
- Keywords:
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- Instrumentation: Spectrographs;
- Methods: Data Analysis;
- Techniques: Spectroscopic;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics