A method for reducing photometric observations of mutual occultations and eclipses of planetary satellites

Photometry of mutual occultations and eclipses of natural planetary satellites allows accurate astrometric data to be obtained by reducing the derived light curves of the satellites. In contrast to commonly used techniques by which the differences between the topocentric angular coordinates of satellites are deduced, we suggest a new approach and develop a corresponding method. To simplify the use of photometric data, the differences between the planetocentric rectangular coordinates of the two satellites at one time are deduced in the new method from each light curve. The advantages of this approach are that after such an observational data reduction, it will suffice to consider only the planetocentric motion of the satellites to improve their orbital parameters.