DATA_SET_DESCRIPTION |
Data Set Overview
=================
This data set contains stellar occultation data from the 1989
occultation of 28 Sagittarii (28Sgr) by Saturn obtained by the
NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF) at the Mauna Kea
observatory. Data include occultation profiles for both ingress
and egress. Observations began well after ring ingress had
commenced capturing part of the C Ring only. However they span the
entire ring egress under excellent conditions.
Ring profiles are archived as resampled normal optical depth
profiles. Geometry solutions and noise models are also provided.
Parameters
==========
The raw data consists of more than 44,000 individual frames
taken with the University of Rochester 62 x 58 pixel InSb array
camera. The units are DN/pixel. Each frame was recorded with an
effective integration time of 0.25 sec. A special-purpose 0.2
micron wide filter centered at 3.225 microns was used.
This filter was designed to occupy the overlap between methane
and water-ice absorption bands.
Processing
==========
Detailed descriptions of the data processing can be found in
NICHOLSONETAL2000 and are summarized here. Preliminary reduction
of the images consisted of sky-frame subtraction, flat-fielding,
and simple aperture photometry on the flattened images
(HARRINGTONETAL1993).
The original observations were combined to provide a time
sequence of signal intensities. The raw data are sampled every
0.25 sec which corresponds to approximately every 5 km in the
ring plane at Saturn. However, the raw data sampling is non-
uniform in radius. The apparent diameter of the star was
approximately 18 km, so the raw data are significantly over
sampled.
The fully processed and resampled ring profiles have been
generated as follows:
(1) Observations of the 28 Sgr occultation made from several
observatories were combined with Voyager PPS and RSS data sets
to determine precisely the ring radial scale and the Saturn pole
orientation (FRENCHETAL1993, HUBBARDETAL1993,
NICHOLSONETAL2000).
(2) Using the improved ring radial scale, the time-series of raw
samples was converted to a uniformly-spaced series of radial
samples. The spatial sampling interval used was 10 km,
corresponding to Nyquist-sampled data based on the apparent star
diameter of approximately 18 km.
(3) Raw data DN levels were converted to normalized flux based
on the viewing geometry, and subsequently to normal optical
depth.
Data
====
Derived profiles (DATA/IRTF sub-directory)
------------------------------------------
The resampled data are presented in seven column ASCII tables.
The columns are (1) radius(km), (2) normalized flux, (3) sigma
flux, (4) normal optical depth(tau), (5) tau lower, (6) tau
upper, (7) quality flag.
The quality flag has five possible values. They are: 0=ok, 1=tau
greater then tau_max, 2=non-photometric, 3=corrupted data,
4=missing data. For detailed discussion of the model used to
determine noise and reasonable values for optical depth see
MODEL.TXT in the DOCUMENTS sub-directory.
In general, for corrupted or missing data, dummy values of
9.9990 are used in columns 3-6.
Ancillary Data
==============
Browse data (BROWSE/IRTF sub-directory)
--------------------------------------
This subdirectory contains two types of plot for each
observation run.
Plots of radial profiles of stellar flux normal optical depth of
the rings as derived from the observations of the 28 Sgr
occultation by the rings of Saturn. Each plot is based on the
corresponding profile data file in the corresponding
subdirectory of the DATA directory.
Plots of ancillary geometry information. Each plot is based on
the corresponding profile data file in the corresponding
subdirectory of the GEOMETRY directory.
Geometry information (GEOMETRY/IRTF sub-directory)
-------------------------------------
The geometry information is provided in separate files for
ingress and egress. Data are arranged in four columns:
a) Equatorial Radius (Km),
b) Observatory received time (UTC),
c) Ring Plane inertial longitude of the intercept point (deg),
d) delta time (s). The latter is a correction factor used when
determining the line-of-sight distance between the ring
intercept point and the observer. The data are presented
with uniformly varying radius (1000 km increments) between
73,000 km and 142,000 km.
The data are arranged in the order of increasing radius
regardless of whether the observation is ingress or egress.
Geometry data were obtained using a polynomial fit. The
polynomial coefficients can be found in DOCUMENTS/POLY_CO.TXT
Coordinate System
=================
All geometric quantities appearing in the labels are in J2000
coordinates. In this coordinate frame, the z-axis points
northward along the Earth's J2000 rotation axis and the x-axis
points toward the First Point of Aries. In some cases, B1950
coordinate values are also included.
Media/Format
============
This data set is archived on compact disc (CDROM) media.
Organization and formats are according to PDS and ISO 9660
level 2 standards.
Most binary data files are in least-significant-byte first, which
is the native format for PCs and Digital workstations. Users of
Suns and other workstations may need to swap bytes in some data
files before use. Note that the software tools provided on this
volume swap the bytes automatically if this is necessary.
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CONFIDENCE_LEVEL_NOTE |
Confidence Level Overview
=========================
Overall the confidence level is high. Flawed data are clearly
identified by non-zero values for the quality flag.
An oblong synthetic aperture 5.9 X 5.0'' in diameter was used for
aperture photometry of most frames, surrounded by a reference
?sky? annulus, but this was reduced to 4.2'' in diameter for the B
Ring. No correction was made for the variable aperture size in
this data set. The full stellar flux levels were linearly
interpolated between measurements made interior to the C Ring and
exterior to the A Ring. The noise level in the unocculted signal
averaged 1.4%, while the maximum detectable optical depth for the
IRTF data is estimated at Tau max greater than or equal to 3.0,
comparable to that of the Palomar data.
Peer Review
===========
Peer review of this data set was completed in February 2005. The
peer reviewers were Shawn Brooks (JPL), Richard G. French
(Wellesley College), Colleen A. McGhee (Wellesley College), Cathy
Olkin (South West Research Institute), and Leslie Young (South
West Research Institute). The data set was also reviewed at the
PDS Engineering Node by Steven L. Adams.
Data Coverage and Quality
=========================
Observations began well after ring ingress had commenced
capturing part of the C Ring only. However they span the entire
ring egress under excellent conditions.
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CITATION_DESCRIPTION |
French, R.G., P.D. Nicholson, and M.K. Gordon, Radial Profiles of
Saturn's Rings from the IRTF Observations of the 1989
Occultation of 28 Sgr, IRTF-SR-URAC-4- OCC-V1.0,
USA_NASA_PDS_EBROCC_0001, NASA Planetary Data System, 2003.
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