VGISS_5,7,8xxx Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune

Mark Showalter and Mitch Gordon
Update: November 8, 2013

Responses to Reviewers' Comments

The data set has gone through substantial revisions since the peer review. The major changes are as follows:

  1. A review of the process revealed that our copy of input file “VGRSCF.DAT” contained the exact same scaling factors for Neptune as for Uranus, so that all I/Fs from the Neptune encounter were small by a factor of ~ 2.5. We have repaired the error in VGRSCF.DAT and have re-calibrated the entire Neptune data set. We have also run the quality tests and the end again to ensure everything is OK. Checks of the image in question confirm that I/Fs for Uranus and Neptune are now similar. The correction is documented in PROCESSING.TXT, and we have also archived the corrected version of VGRSCF.DAT in the CALIB subdirectory on the last Neptune volume.
  2. It was found that many of the Uranus and Neptune images had inadvertently been calibrated using ADESPIKE instead of DESPIKE. he latter is newer and produces superior results. Also, some Uranus and Neptune images were not processed using VGRFILLIN, which resulted in horizontal stripes near the edges of some images. All Uranus and Neptune images were re- processed using VGRFILLIN and DESPIKE. Note that the Neptune images were also calibrated using the corrected version of VGRSCF.DAT, as discussed above. All quality tests were then repeated. Side-by-side comparisons of the new and old versions of selected images confirm that the new versions are distinctly cleaner and that the Neptune scale factors are correct.
  3. The labels for the raw files did not include the (undocumented) ENGINEERING_TABLE object, which occupies the second and third record of each file. The labels have been corrected.
  4. We transcribed the tables from Danielson et al. 1981 and added them to the DOCUMENT/REPORTS subdirectory. We also standardized the DOCUMENT directory across all volumes except for the encounter-specific files PROCESSING.TXT and TUTORIAL.TXT. This is explained in DOCINFO.TXT.
  5. PRODUCT_CREATION_TIMES were updated to reflect the new processing.
  6. Numerous documentation files were updated, including TUTORTIAL.TXT, PROCESSING.TXT, AAREADME.TXT, DATASET.CAT, INDEX.TAB, ERRATA.TXT, and most of the PDS .LBL files.
A few things are not part of this release:
  1. We have not yet augmented the geometric information about the images. This is the subject of ongoing work at the Rings Node, along with similar work for the Cassini mission. This work is incomplete at this time but will be included in a future update to the data sets.
  2. We have not yet corrected targets currently identified as "UNK_SAT". These will be corrected along with the augmented geometry information.
  3. We have not yet documented a few very old file formats that are archived primarily to support current users of VICAR. Charlie Avis has agreed to provide some of this information, and we will include it in an update.

The Data

The new archival versions of these volumes are on line here:

The archival versions contain significant changes over the peer review versions, and should be used for research activities. For continuity, the peer review volumes remain on line here:

Reviewers' Submitted Comments

Responses to Review Comments

Consolidated review comments annotated with Rings Node responses in green.

Individual reviews with responses in green.


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