The french expertise center SUV (for Services Aux Utilisateurs du VLTI) provides a complete support to the users of the 2nd generation VLTI instruments. This support consists of an individualized assistance (FAQ, questions submission, face-to-face meetings) that covers the preparation of observing proposals and observations, and the GRAVITY and MATISSE data reduction. It also includes an assistance in the data analysis, using the model fitting and image reconstruction softwares available from the JMMC website.

SUV is coordinated by Alexis Matter at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur (OCA) in Nice, and involves astronomers from three other nodes (Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, Observatoire des Sciences de l’Univers de Grenoble, Observatoire des Sciences de l’Univers de Lyon). A centralized helpdesk platform, accessible from the orange link above, collects all the user questions and requests for a remote or face-to-face assistance in one of the four nodes.

SUV is part of a european network of VLTI Expertise Centers (ECs), which are the backbone of support and dissemination activities to the current and new VLTI users. More detailed information about the VLTI ECs network can be found on the wepage of the European Interferometry Initiative.

Detailed technical information about the VLTI instruments, including tools download and documentation can be found here for GRAVITY, and here for MATISSE. The main changes affecting the instruments over time are updated here for GRAVITY and here for MATISSE.

Data protection policy

SUV is open to every researcher wanting to reduce a raw VLTI dataset to which they have access (either as PI or CoI, or because the ESO protection period lapsed). SUV can accept several requests on the same raw dataset.
Any dataset reduced with the help of SUV is put on OIDB (Optical Interferometry DataBase) in a private collection only accessible by the user and his/her designated colleagues. Such a collection will be kept private until the first publication of scientific results based on the reduced dataset, or ultimately until one year after the end of the ESO protection period on the raw data.
Therefore, the general rule is that all data reduced with the help of SUV will be made publicly available after the first scientific publication, or ultimately one year after the release of the raw data.
As a corollary, if SUV reduces raw data that have been public for more than one year, the reduced data will be made public immediately on OIDB.

Acknowledgements and Publication policy

If your research benefited from the help of the User Support SUV, please see the updated Acknowledgements page.

Once your request has been submitted by the HelpDesk, a member of the User Support team will take it on and do his best to meet your needs. If his help goes beyond the basic request and involves more in-depth assistance, such as helping to analyze and improve a model fitting or an image reconstruction, it would be appropriate to recognise these contributions by considering him as a co-author of the final publication.

The SUV Expertise Center has received funding from the European union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730890.