The High Contrast Data Centre (HC-DC), previously known as the SPHERE Data Centre, focuses on high contrast imaging and spectroscopic data. Our objective is twofold : i/ to provide an efficient large scale data processing capability for high contrast data. This is aimed to handle large data set in an homogeneous and version-controlled manner, including standard or expert-provided novel algorithms. ii/ to gather and make accessible high level science products relevant for high contrast data (from either HC-DC processed data or external survey ouputs).
Two types of sources are available: data processed in our processing centre, and high contrast surveys from external sources. We provide our data through our portals, and a selection of data is also available on the ESO archive. Our organisation is presented in the diagram below.
High-contrast instruments such as those SPHERE on the VLT produce huge amounts of data (large volume and diversity in terms of observing modes and instruments) requiring dedicated data processing to produce the desired high contrast, to take advantage of the performances of the instruments in terms of detection and characterisation of the astrophysical signal. We have therefore implemented a Processing data centre allowing to answer this need, constituting a reference centre on high contrast. The objective is to gather the high contrast imaging community to optimize the scientific return on such instruments. We have processed the data obtained with SPHERE at the VLT (public data) based on various algorithms. This brings a strong added-value to the data obtained with SPHERE by providing optimized tools. Any users can access publicly available reduced data through portals. In addition, PIs can request that our team reduces their data. In the short to mid-term future, we also plan to propose reduction of the SPHERE data with new generation algorithms, as well as reduced data from other instruments.
In addition, 16 homogeneous surveys obtained with several past and current instruments (NaCo-LP, Song-HST, Durkan-Spitzer, Gemini Deep Planet Survey, SPHERE-SHINE, …) are also publicly available, in the frame of the DIVA project: the post-processing has been made by the scientific team in most cases, and reformated by our team. The Direct Imaging Virtual Archive, DIVA, initiated by Gaël Chauvin, Arthur Vigan, Claire Moutou and Mariangela Bonavita (Vigan et al., 2017), was dedicated to high-contrast imaging surveys, and more particularly to the main high-level science products (HLSP) of these surveys, such as detection limits and position of exoplanet candidates. The increase of large-scale surveys in the recent years has produced a large quantity of these HLSP, which remain difficult to access once the surveys are published without reanalysing the data. The detection limits carry information about the sensitivity to the presence of massive planets and brown dwarfs at large orbital separations. This information can be used to infer statistical properties on the population of these objects. Similarly, the position and contrast of detected candidates around each target is of prime importance for on-going and future surveys to save precious telescope time in follow-up. Our goal is therefore to gather in a consistent format the results of past and present surveys, and to serve as a reference tool for the scientific exploitation of high-contrast imaging surveys. While it currently holds data for some of the major surveys in recent years, it will only benefit the community if it is regularly updated with newly published data.
Partners
The HC-DC team has developed those tools thanks to the support of our laboratories and observatories, with the contribution of several colleagues as well as tools published in the literature. This service is supported by INSU (national observation service ANO-5) and in relation with ESO. If you also wish to contribute, either with reduction or analysis tools or with a survey, we encourage you to contact us!
The project relies on local infrastructures (which include other services and projects), which ensures the long-term maintenance of the development being made and allows expertise sharing with other projects. These two infrastructures are both recognised as Regional Centre of Expertise by INSU/CNRS:
- in Grenoble, the HC-DC is part of the OSUG Data Centre and relies on the Université Grenoble Alpes infrastructures to perform the data reduction of SPHERE public data (data storage, computing grids)
- in Marseille, HC-DC is part of the CeSAM, who is developing DIVA+ allowing to request reduced data.