The Elixir System: Data characterization and calibration at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope

The Elixir System at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope performs data characterization and calibration for all data from the wide-field mosaic imagers CFH12K and MegaPrime. The project has several related goals, including monitoring data quality, providing high-quality master detrend images, determining the photometric and astrometric calibrations, and automatic preprocessing of images for queued service observing (QSO). The Elixir system has been used for all data obtained with CFH12K since the QSO project began in 2001 January. In addition, it has been used to process archival data from the CFH12K and all MegaPrime observations beginning in 2002 December. The Elixir system has been extremely successful in providing well-characterized data to the end observers, who may otherwise be overwhelmed by data-processing concerns.