Full Res 4K Pioneer Jupiter texture, mapping a lost world

[Shadow-Dragon-777]

PART 1
A month ago an idea popped into my head. I was unable to go to sleep so I decided to test it, mapping Jupiter as it appeared during Pioneer. This was going to be a challenge! Only a couple attempts have been done prior to map Pioneer images of Jupiter and they were low resolution 1K maps. I however had a gut feeling 4K was feasible. The existing maps were a mess with latitude variations in the bands and much of the planet just unmapped.

4thRock's map of Jupiter during Pioneer. This was the best map we had for 18 years and its a mess.

First thing I did was start hunting for anything on the web of these images. Eventually I came across 3 places to find these images.
http://www.astrosurf.com/nunes/explor_p10_11.html
https://www.planetary.org/space-images/poster_stryk_lpsc_pioneer
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://astrosurf.com/nunes/explor/pioneer/*
Next up was to figure out what images were usable and where the images were in relation to each other. This was going to be hard considering the spacecraft took pictures via line by line as the spacecraft rotated and three things affected this, the movement of the spacecraft, the rotation of Jupiter, and the changing clouds of Jupiter.

Images C1/C2 with how they are connected to C3.

Amid the project, I also found some incorrect info on where the images were. For example, image A5 is incorrectly labeled by the Planetary Society as A4 and being near the GRS but this is found to not be the case. A4 was garbled by radiation, and the GRS is near antipodal to it. https://www.planetary.org/space-images/jupiter-closeup-from-pioneer-10

A5 during Pioneer 10 was not near the GRS.

[Shadow-Dragon-777]

PART 2
With the images located and sorted, I started projecting them. Initially I used globes in closeup image documentation to map those, then I started mapping further out imagery. With each image, Jupiter's rotation revealed more and more of the planet. Images were prioritized by whichever were higher resolution.

Uncorrected initially mapped images.

After that, I corrected the brightness and color of the images in relation to a Voyager map to maintain consistency.

Brightness corrected images

The images would be done in 4 sections of priority highest to lowest given the resolution:
P11 Closeup red
P10 Closeup orange
P11 Approach yellow
P11 Departure green

Image Coverage in the final map

[Shadow-Dragon-777]

PART 3
Eventually with the mapping of all available images, I then used layer mask to filter out where the closer images were lower resolution at the fringes. By luck, the Pioneer 10 closeup images worked well with Pioneer 11 images despite the planet's changing clouds with a band of squiggly clouds above the GRS being in the same place. There was actually more inconsistency between Pioneer 11 closeup and far images. Then I brightness corrected the map to match Voyager maps. The result is a map of a lost world 5 years before Voyager that is now rediscovered.

4K texture of Pioneer Jupiter providing the highest possible resolution of Pioneer data.

When used in Celestia, this map reveals a world alien to today's Jupiter with its huge red spot floating amid the dramatically different milky white South Equatorial Belt. This will be in a future update of Grand Tour Jupiter.

The GRS and surrounding area provide incredible contrast.