Improved Band-to-Band Registration Characterization for VIIRS Reflective Solar Bands Based on Lunar Observations

Spectral bands of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite are spatially co-registered. The accuracy of the band-to-band registration (BBR) is one of the key spatial parameters that must be characterized. Unlike its predecessor, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), VIIRS has no on-board calibrator specifically designed to perform on-orbit BBR characterization. To circumvent this problem, a BBR characterization method for VIIRS reflective solar bands (RSB) based on regularly-acquired lunar images has been developed. While its results can satisfactorily demonstrate that the long-term stability of the BBR is well within ±0.1 moderate resolution band pixels, undesired seasonal oscillations have been observed in the trending. The oscillations are most obvious between the visible/near-infrared bands and short-/middle wave infrared bands. This paper investigates the oscillations and identifies their cause as the band/spectral dependence of the centroid position and the seasonal rotation of the lunar images over calibration events. Accordingly, an improved algorithm is proposed to quantify the rotation and compensate for its impact. After the correction, the seasonal oscillation in the resulting BBR is reduced from up to 0.05 moderate resolution band pixels to around 0.01 moderate resolution band pixels. After removing this spurious seasonal oscillation, the BBR, as well as its long-term drift are well determined