SPHERE quality control and dataflow operations The first observing period Wolfgang Hummel, ESO, Data Management and Operations Division (DMO) SPHERE calibration plan Science templates One peculiarity of the SPHERE calibration plan are the science templates that generate in advance of the science data also calibration data valid for the particular pointing only. These include an optional image of the waffle pattern to reconstruct the source center behind the coronograph (called CENTER) , an optional source offset image for the flux calibration (called FLUX) and optional sky frames. Introduction Since April 2015 ESO operates the new planet finder instrument SPHERE (Fig. 1). SPHERE is one of the most complex instruments at the VLT. It consists of the common path and infrastructure (CPI) for AO and coronography and of three arms: IRDIS, IFS and ZIMPOL. A total of eight different observing modes is supported, each one with its own independent calibration plan and data association scheme. The modes include NIR differential beam imaging, integral field spectroscopy and differential polarimetric imaging with 30msec time resolution in the visual. [1] The first observing period of an instrument is usually the most critical phase in its life time, in particular in the context of quality control (QC) which is a task shared between science operations on site and the QC group in Garching. Here we report on the data flow design challenges, the QC system and operational highlights of the first six months of SPHERE operations. Operational Highlights: IFS light leakage We found a light leakage in the IFS-arm detector. As a consequence the dark calibrations show:  The dark current is linear function of DIT (Fig. 4, Box 4).  The dark current depends on the temperature at the optical bench (Fig. 4, Box 6).  The statistical noise measured is dominated by the shot noise introduced by the light leakage (and not by the readout noise ~3 ADU)  The statistical noise scales as square root with DIT (Fig.5, Box 4) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS/REFERENCES Narrow band - broad band filter match The time to acquire day-time calibrations scales with the number of different instrument setups the observations use in one night, but the time window for taking day-time calibrations is confined due to operational reasons. Since it is justified for IRDIS and ZIMPOL to calibrate narrow band filter science observations with broad band filter day- time calibrations (covering the narrow band), this filter association was implemented for reasons to make use of these synergies. Insert other logos (optional) Fig.2: Left: Waffle pattern with the four cross points marked to find the center of the star behind the coronographic mask. CENTER calibration. Middle: Star at offset position, FLUX calibration. Right: Star behind the coronographic mask, science frame. Fig. 4: Sphere Health Check Plot to monitor QC parameters retrieved from DARK calibrations of the IFS-arm. The upper three boxes show the dark levels in ADU for three different DIT values. The lower middle plot shows the optical bench temperature with nearly the same pattern. The lower left box shows the linear dependence of the dark level with exposure time. (Cyan circles mark last entries.) The lower right box show the temperature dependence for the three mentioned exposure times (2sec, 8sec and 30sec). CONTACT Wolfgang Hummel Astronomical Data Quality Control Scientist ESO, Karl-Schwarzschild Str. 2, D-85748 Garching whummel@eso.org Live versions of the presented health check plots can be found here: Insert other logos (optional) Fig. 5: Sphere Health Check Plot to monitor QC parameters retrieved from DARK calibrations of the IFS-arm. The upper three boxes show the readout noise in ADU for three different DIT values. The lower middle plot shows the optical bench temperature with nearly the same pattern. The lower left box shows the square root dependence of the readout noise with exposure time. (Cyan circles mark last entries.) T