Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:14:54 -0700
To: padma@scn.jpl.nasa.gov, rffpayf@earthlink.net
From: Mark Showalter <mshowalter@mail.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Transcript of UVS peer review
Cc: 

Padma,

Here is a transcription of my notes from our conversation last week.  Please let me know if I have captured your comments accurately.  Any corrections are welcome, including a total rewrite if you wish.  Otherwise I will assume that this is the final text of your peer review for the UVS data set.

I really do appreciate your help.

Regards, Mark

===================================================

Overall, this appears to be a complete analysis and assessment of the Voyager UVS ring occultation data.

At Mark's request, Padma's focus was on the DOCUMENT/SPROFILE files.  Padma is unfamiliar with some of the processing steps described here.  She has reservations about the way Mark worked backward to retrieve the separate star and background count values for the Saturn profile; mainly she is unsure whether this is a unique solution or just one of many that are equally plausible.

Most of Padma's UVS data files, including those that she used for her thesis, were lost when an old computer was decommissioned.  Nevertheless, the optical depth values found on this volume are consistent with values she used in her thesis research. Gaps that Mark noted in the data files were the result of tape read errors.

Padma referred Mark to a typed memo written by Jude Diner in the early 1980's that describes the usage of the "E parameter" in detail.  This memo also makes the point that occultation error bars are not symmetric.  Padma cannot find a hardcopy of this memo but believes Phil Nicholson may have a copy somewhere.  Mark will try to find a copy.