My Diary

August 15
    This is mid August, but summer is still firmly with us. Since August 11, I have been looking out for the Perseid meteor shower and I wonder when it reached the peak. I haven't seen any noticeable increase.
    I began observation late on August 14. Around 3:30 am on the following day, I witnessed a 6th-magnitude fireball in the northern sky. It lasted for only 0.7 seconds, but lit up the sky and surrounding landscape.
    I remember that on the morning of August 13, 1950, when I started comet search for the first time, I saw a tremendously bright fireball belonging to the Perseid shower. It was so bright as if a half moon had suddenly appeared. I clearly saw my shadow cast on the ground. If I had happened to see that fireball directly, I would have found it an awesome sight. A scale-like trail of the fireball was hanging in the air quite clearly for some time in the southern sky. I felt an eerie sensation and thought it could be an omen predicting a rough time for my future comet search. Surely, for the next 10 years I experienced turbulent, tumultuous years of comet search.
    The Milky Way in the northern sky looked like sprinkled silvery sand and the Andromeda Galaxy was clearly visible to the naked eye. It was still summer on the ground, but up in the heavens autumn was at its peak.
    At a little before 4 am, the autumn zodiacal light faintly colored the eastern sky pale, narrow and long, though it was still August. This mystical light is still present unaffected in the sky over Geisei.


June 29
    On June 27 it rained heavily in the eastern part of Kochi prefecture, particularly around Aki city. We were worried about possible damage to the observatory building because the area of the heaviest rain happened to be where the observatory was located. Mr. Shimomoto checked the observatory during the daytime of June 28 and found that rainwater had found its way through a small opening between the slit and dome to wet the telescope and some part of the floor covering . He cleaned the dome carefully and left for home as the weather was not very good that night, while I headed for the observatory believing it would clear up late at night. It was a complete surprise when I ran into Mr. Shimomoto at a service station on my way to the observatory.
    Occasionally, my weather forecast turns out to be right. At the observatory the sky began clearing up rapidly around 22.00 revealing the magnificent Milky Way (as seen in the photograph) running from north to south. Particularly, the sky around Sagittarius where Jupiter was positioned was awesome. Mesmerized, I just stared at the sky for some time thinking that in the sky like this there could be a nova shining somewhere.
    Before the dawn C/2007 (Boattini) is expected to become visible at 6th magnitude low in the eastern sky, but its altitude is 0 at the start of twilight and it is well behind the forest in the east. Once it has cleared the forest, the comet could be a magnificent sight as its distance from the earth is small.


June 13
    On June 12, the president of Nishimura Optical Company of Kyoto, manufacturer of Geisei's 70cm reflector, met at Kochi University of Technology with people involved in this telescope project to discuss the future improvements. I believe that there is no perfect telescope at the moment of installation and that problems can be corrected one by one for perfection only by joint efforts between the manufacturer and observers. At this meeting the problems raised were one of the f-ratio dependent on the position of the reducer lens and vignetting caused by the diagonal mirror. They discussed how these problems could be resolved.
    　At night we had a clear sky briefly, perhaps a break in the rainy season, and tested the CCD until late at night with Mr. Shimomoto, a staff member of Geisei. There were clouds hanging around at first, but after Mr. Shimomoto left for home, the clouds began clearing from the west and by dawn it turned to a magnificent starry sky.


    The Milky Way was awesome and appeared three-dimensional. From the dome I photographed known visible comets for astrometry. For 30 minutes to the dawn I searched the eastern sky with 15cm binoculars.
    The beauty of the stars projected through the fast lens is beyond words. Only when you are searching through a comet seeker, you can really appreciate the true beauty of the heavens. The Double Cluster in Perseus appeared to be star dust pouring out of a jewel box. M33 in Triangulum was diffused and extensive, looking like a swirling smoke, reminiscent of Comet Holmes observed earlier. I estimated the total magnitude of the comet to be five.
    A photograph of the constellations like the one below is made using monochrome film (which I favor most) during an observing session.


May 3
    After a long "hibernation", I awoke to find spring at its peak. The temperature rose to nearly 30 degrees C today.
    The three staff members, the "pillars" of new Geisei Observatory, met today. They are Kenji Muraoka, specialist in orbit calculations, Shigeo Shimomoto, CCD observer, and Tsutomu Seki hunting for comets with "unbridled enthusiasm". They constitute the "Project Geisei" team. In the dome under a beautiful starry sky, we marveled at CCD images captured by the new altazimuth-mounted 70cm reflector. We photographed C/2008 H1. A color CCD image of M51 in Ursa Major hanging high in the northern sky was very impressive helped by the the 70cm reflector's 5000 mm focal length. In spite of this long focal length, it tracks the target accurately. Its "GoTo" system is very accurate for any astronomical object. The remaining problems are tube currents, vignetting occurring where the CCD is attached, the slow f-ratio (f/7.3), and others. All these will be expected to be fixed by the manufacturer in a month or so.
    After Mr. Muraoka left, Mr. Shimomoto and I continued to observe while reminiscing about the old days. Mr. Shimomoto told me he had inherited a memorable mechanical computer from Mr. Hasegawa, president of Oriental Astronomical Association. I shared my experience with him of calculating orbits using a mechanical computer like that for many, many years. During that period I calculated the circular orbits of about 250 minor planets and also did calculations with Mr. Hasegawa to determine the orbit of Comet Perrine, which was lost around 1955. It is funny to picture that Mr. Hasegawa in Kobe and I in Kochi were madly calculating the orbit generating a loud noise by turning the handle of a mechanical computer, and yet it was so satisfactory to me. We would even managed to work out Gauss's biquadratic equation to determine the distance to astronomical objects.
    After Mr. Shimomoto left for home, I stayed on in the dome to conduct photographic patrol. At the same time I searched the eastern sky in the approaching twilight using 15cm binoculars in a roll-off roof observatory. It had been quite a while since my last search. I came across the familiar glow of M31. I noticed there was a faint mist hanging low in the sky.