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May 2001

• May 30
The weather has been unsettling, a reminder of the start of the rainy season. I am frustrated unable to observe, while many cometary discoveries have been being made by LINEAR and other projects. I photocopied Norton's star charts and pasted them on A3-size sheets of thick paper. As my comet search is done using 12cm binoculars or 9cm comet-seeker, faint star clusters and nebulae are not visible. Norton's charts are the handiest for this purpose, as the number of charts is rather small. Incidentally, Norton's Atlas was Mr. Minoru Honda's favorite.

Later at night, I drove home from the observatory and found the cat Romi waiting for me in the dark corner of the room. She crawled up quietly to my feet. She doesn't sleep at night and might have been bored. There isn't much to talk about the stars today. I hope, at least, you enjoy the photograph of my cat.

LINEAR C/2001 A2 will soon appear in the morning sky!

Pet cat Romi

• May 27
The weather improved but seeing was so bad that even C/2001 K3 at magnitude 17 could not be captured. Large-aperture telescopes are vulnerable to poor seeing. However, transparency was better than average spring nights. Intensely bright Mars stood out in the middle of the Milky Way. This hauntingly mysterious red planet must have disturbed people since ancient times.

Mars in the Milky Way
105mm lens with a 2-minute exposure

• May 22
I named minor planets discovered by Geisei Observatory as follows:
(9196) Sukagawa: Discovered on November 27, 1992
(9323) Hirohisa Sato: Discovered on February 11, 1989

Sukagawa City is where Mr. Sato has been living for many years. It is also where the famous marathon runner Kokichi Tsburaya was born.
Mr. Sato is an amateur astronomer, who has been making great contributions to OAA (Oriental Astronomical Association). The minor planet was named after him to honor his achievements and show our appreciation for his contributions. The name was proposed by Mr. Shoji Harada of OAA.
This is the discovery photograph of Minor Planet 9323 Hirohisa-Sato. The magnitude was 17.5 measured by the 60cm reflector.

Minor Planet 9323
03.09 - 03.39 (double exposure) February 11, 1989 (J.S.T.)

• May 19
As the weather was good, I came to the Observatory at midnight. After conducting photographic search for about 3 hours by the 60cm reflector, I visually searched the eastern sky from 2.30am to daybreak for about one hour. I used the 20cm refractor at 40x mounted on the 60cm telescope, but maneuvering this huge telescope was an exhausting exercise. The 12cm binocular comet-seeker has a 3°wide field and most of the eastern sky can be covered in 30 minutes. But even if a comet-like object is captured at a low altitude in a twilight sky, it will be very difficult to determine its position. The equatorially-mounted 60cm reflector, on the other hand, can show the position digitally even during daytime. If it is found suspicious, all you have to do is just photograph it. The 20cm refractor is equipped with a revolving eyepiece turret with 40 to 200 magnifications. Faint hazy doubles can be split.

• May 11
Looking out the upstairs south-side window at midnight, I was amazed at the ruddy color of Mars. It was a placid (difficult to describe) and yet eerie color. Mars will become closest to the earth in June during the rainy season and look redder and larger. Even from town the stars were bright tonight in transparent sky, the best in some time.
I woke up at 4am and walked up to the rooftop. I found Venus this time. It was shining very brightly in the eastern sky over the town at the beginning of dawn.
This is the place where I discovered a number of comets in the 1960s. Comet Seki (1961f) was discovered right above the neon lights on the steel tower. Just forty years have passed since. It is like a dream.
Geisei Observatory will have its 20th anniversary this year. We are planning some events to commemorate it.

Venus seen from the rooftop

• May 10
The moon has moved eastward sufficiently, creating a two-hour dark period after full moon. "Dark skies" at the observatory are not dark in summer as you can see from this photograph. Almost every night there is a night baseball game(sandlot baseball) lighting the night sky as brightly as daytime. In this bright night sky I made a photographic observation of Comet Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova low in the western sky. When all the lights for a night game are turned off, the sky glow will be halved. Lights from the streets have also contributed to severe light pollution. Geisei could become known infamously as the brightest observatory in Japan. However, my guiding principle is "Do as much as you can even under unfavorable conditions." While driving back home after completing work at the observatory at 22.30, I saw from my car an interesting sight of the moon and mars shining side by side.

• May 2
We were struck by a sudden deluge. The central weather bureau forecast approaching heavy rains for some parts of the western Japan due to a passing low. However, it was a storm more like a typhoon. In Kochi Prefecture heavy rainfalls of more than 20mm per hour continued all day causing flood damages.
Usually the local weather bureau issues a warning only after rain and wind has become strong. This cannot be called "forecast." Anyone can tell if there is any danger once rain has become heavy. A warning is useless unless it is issued several hours earlier.
My grandmother used to say that typhoons hit the area without any warning in the Meiji Period. Unlike those days, weather satellites are watching the weather from above. Can they forecast more accurately? While they cannot forecast even tomorrow's weather accurately, they make a long-term forecast. It is rather incomprehensible.

I am having a break as the moon is so bright but thinking of going back to the observatory to check if there is any damage to the observatory dome by the heavy rain.