VIKING AND VOYAGER AT HOME

If you're anxious to see more of Neptune, you don't need to plan a field trip to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). With a home computer and a modem or a CD-ROM player, you can do your own interstellar image-processing.

Within days of Voyager's flyby, pictures of Neptune and Triton were posted on American People/Link, BIX, CompuServe, and local bulletin boards. Most of these are gray-scale pictures in GIF format, which is supported by most personal computers.

If these simple, unenhanced pictures whet your appetite, check out the free GRIPS CD-ROM produced by Meridian Data and JPL. This ISO-standard disc contains hundreds of images from 15 years of Voyager and Viking missions. Some of these files are as large as 1.2 megabytes. You can see these pictures on Macintoshes or PCs with a standard CD-ROM player.

The GRIPS CD-ROM is available for free, but you must pay $9 to cover shipping and handling. For information, contact Meridian Data, 5615 Scotts Valley Drive, Scotts Valley, California 95066; Attention: Monica Meyer.

—DENNY ATKIN