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• November 12, 2017

It is essential for instruments, that work in space or at or near the target bodies, to be characterized under the actual operating conditions. Establishing the procedure of data processing is important as well. IR2, which cools its sensor and optics by a cryo-cooler, is affected in particular by thermal environment in the orbit. Satoh et al. (2017) made efforts to produce the data with best possible quality by understanding the behavior of IR2. Achievements include the brightness correction between electrically-independent quadrants of the sensor, the flat-field response, and the absolute calibration coefficients for high-precision photometry of Venus. It is expected that such "quality assured" IR2 data will be used in a variety of studies from the atmospheric dynamics to the cloud microphysics.