SCALES-DRP : A Data Reduction Pipeline for an Upcoming Keck Thermal Infrared Spectrograph (2509.15489v1)

Abstract: We present the end-to-end data reduction pipeline for SCALES (Slicer Combined with Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy), the upcoming thermal-infrared, diffraction-limited imager, and low and medium-resolution integral field spectrograph (IFS) for the Keck II telescope. The pipeline constructs a ramp from a set of reads and performs optimal extraction and chi-square extraction to reconstruct the 3D IFS datacube. To perform spectral extraction, wavelength calibration, and sky subtraction, the pipeline utilizes rectification matrices produced using position-dependent lenslet point spread functions (PSFs) derived from calibration exposures. The extracted 3D data cubes provide intensity values along with their corresponding uncertainties for each spatial and spectral measurement. The SCALES pipeline is under active development, implemented in Python within the Keck data reduction framework, and is openly available on GitHub along with dedicated documentation.