Improvements on the Suomi-NPP VIIRS Near-Constant Contrast (NCC) Imagery

The Suomi-NPP has been flying for over a year now. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) day-night-band (DNB) has been producing high quality sensor data record (SDR) imagery for all solar and lunar conditions, providing the capability to observe atmospheric and surface features even in moonless conditions. This unprecedented capability has already been recognized as a valuable asset to the community. One of the derived products of the DNB SDRs is the near-constant-contrast (NCC) environmental data record (EDR). The NCC algorithm produces imagery that removes scene differences due to changes in solar and lunar illumination to produce a near-constant contrast image. This is particularly useful in characterizing surface and atmospheric features during the solar terminator of the orbit. However, the at-launch algorithm has been producing poor nighttime imagery (or no imagery) for several days around the new moon. The causes of the poor imagery are due to: restrictive algorithmic thresholds, DNB stray light contamination, and the atmospheric phenomenon known as airglow. These three issues will be presented in detail with their corresponding solutions. We find that these changes lead to high quality NCC imagery for all solar and lunar conditions.