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The 1998 November 14 Occultation of GSC 0622-00345 by Saturn. I. Techniques for Ground-Based Stellar Occultations

On 1998 November 14, Saturn and its rings occulted the star GSC 0622-00345. We observed atmospheric immersion with NSFCAM at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Immersion occurred at 55.5\circ S planetocentric latitude. A 2.3 μm, methane-band filter suppressed reflected sunlight. Atmospheric emersion and ring data were not successfully obtained. We describe our observation, light-curve production, and timing techniques, including improvements in aperture positioning, removal of telluric scintillation effects, and timing. Many of these techniques are known within the occultation community, but have not been described in the reviewed literature. We present a light curve whose signal-to-noise ratio per scale height is 267, among the best ground-based signals yet achieved, despite a disadvantage of up to 8 mag in the stellar flux compared to prior work.