My Diary

April 24
    While looking at a star chart on the computer screen for telescope control, I noticed that 22P/Kopff was glowing in Aquarius in the dawn sky. A memory about this comet goes as far back as 40 years.
    "Comet Seki-Ike", of course, doesn't exist, but in the 1960s you couldn't rule out the possibility of its discovery. Mr. Koichi Ike in Tosa city (15km west of Kochi city) was a rival comet hunter and we were furiously competitive for discovery.
    In those days I was using the 9cm refracting comet seeker, while Mr. Ike was equipped with a little larger 12.5cm refractor. He would lock himself in his unique floor-revolging observatory and search mainly the predawn eastern sky. The sky conditions were excellent and observing instruments were perfect. "The next comet is mine for sure", he grinned with his inherent large eyes shining with eagerness.
    This incident occurred on the early morning of April 25, 1964. I was searching a perfectly clear starry sky with my mind firmly set on the job. Around half past three I spotted a 9th-magnitude fuzzy comet-like object in Aquarius. Nothing was marked at that position on a star chart and there was no prediction of a bright comet appearing there. A half hour later, someone banged the front door. Stunned, I went to open the door to find a whey-faced man standing there. I instantly recognized him. It was Mr. Ike. "Seki-san, I've found it!" said he in a highly excited voice.
    Believing he found what I had found earlier, I asked him in and compared the notes. Undoubtedly, we spotted the same object. In the absence of any bright comet predicted at that position, we named this object "Comet Seki-Ike" according to Mr. Ike's suggestion. We sent a telegraph to Tokyo Astronomical Observatory at 6 am. The following day, Mr. Ikeya of Hamamatsu sent a telegraph on the discovery of the same object to the observatory, too.
    A reply from Tokyo Observatory revealed that it was the outburst of the famous periodic comet 22P/Kopff. I knew that this comet was listed in the BAA Handbook predicted to be at 14th magnitude, but the sudden brightening by 5 magnitudes fooled up completely. A similar thing happened in 1955. Comet Mrkos discovered that year was supposed to be a new comet, but as a result of research turned out to be long-lost Comet Perrine. As a result, it was renamed Comet Perrine-Mrkos.
    I wonder where Mr. Ike is now and what he is doing. He long loved comets and searched for them for nearly 50 years. In spite of his numerous heroic episodes of comet search, he was rewarded so little. I gave his name to a minor planet discovered at Geisei. The naming of Minor Planet Ike (21022) is to symbolize our friendship.
    When Comet Ikeya-Seki "kissed" the sun on October 21, 1965, he observed the comet with his unique invention. He built a darkroom to observe the comet during the daytime. It has become an ever-lasting fond memory for me. Mr. Ike, full of adventurous spirit and curiosity, was constantly on the move chasing after comets. His unrecognized achievements will never fade away as long as his star shines in the sky.


April 5
    There is an interesting attraction in Kochi city called "Street Number 33 on the Earth" located at Yayoi-cho, a town downstream Enokuchigawa River running through the middle of Kochi city.
    This is where longitude 133 degrees east and latitude 33 degrees north cross each other. The exact position of the longitude and latitude lines crossing is located in the stream of the narrow river only 30 meters wide. Thirty years ago, a monument was erected there, but relatively recently a new duralumin globe has been attached to the top of the monument.
    Around 1965 when I discovered Comet Ikeya-Seki, there was a newspaper reporter living in that area. On every important occasion he came over to cover the news. Interestingly, on his business card he wrote "in the vicinity of Street Number 33 on the Earth" for his address. He did so because the area he lived was a jumble of houses and narrow streets and it was very difficult to locate his home. "Street Number 33 on the Earth" must have been a lot easier to find.
    When I visited him, I ended up at a house one block south of his place by mistake. Believe it or not, I found two good-looking equatorial astronomical telescopes in the front yard. Needless to say, I didn't know anything about the residents of the house, but realized that there are people who observe the night sky without being known to others. I myself was one of them and a complete novice when I found Comet Crommelin, my first discovery. Learning about my discovery, the then deputy chief of the news department of local Kochi Shinbun newspaper located our place only after searching all over the place throughout the night. He barely managed to meet the deadline to place the discovery news in the morning paper.
    Reminiscing about those days, I took a shot of the monument with a spy camera called Gami-16. How did its Esamitar f/1.9 25mm lens work? All the details in the distance are brought out beautifully.

    My favorite Gami-16 works perfectly well and does not require any repair by "Mr. Galileo Galilei", president of Officine Galileo of Milan.


February 16
    Every year I receive the New Year greeting cards from Mr. Keiichiro Okamura and Koichi Ike, but not this year. While I was concerned about their health, Mr. Okamura dropped in riding on his bike. He looked quite well. He resigned from his staff post at Geisei Observatory due to his "advanced age", but he certainly looked capable of continuing his work. As he had been one of the longest serving members of the observatory since its beginning in the 1980s, we wanted him to stay on. At the same time, we cannot impose on him because he says he finds a nighttime driving rather unsafe. Mr. Okamura says he will attend an annual staff meeting at Kochi Prefecture Culture and Education Association on February 26. At the observatory's Learning Center a superb replica of William Herschel's great telescope built by him is being displayed reflecting his excellent service to the observatory.
    Mr. Ike, on the other hand, moved to Chiba prefecture about 10 years ago, where his son was living, and since then our communication has been sporadic and at times lost. My discovery of Comet Seki-Lines in 1962 was the beginning of our long association. He was a passionate comet hunter himself, but his efforts did not bear fruit for 30 years. As he became interested in comets when Comet Okabayashi-Honda was discovered in 1940, his comet search spanned well over half a century. During this long period, he encountered the apparition of Comet Ikeya-Seki and Halley's Comet and ran far and near chasing these comets. When Comet Ikeya-Seki approached the sun as close as 0.006 AU, it was too dangerous to observe. But he continued to watch the comet helped by his characteristic enthusiasm and ingenuity and acquired very important observation data when the comet was grazing the sun. I believe he was the last observer in the world visually confirming the comet plunging into the sun and the first to observe the reappearance from behind the sun.
    In those days I often rode a bike to his home in Tosa City, 20km away from home, as I didn't drive a car. A 3-meter dome was glistening on the rooftop of his three-story home, which housed an unusual camera. This was a type of Maksutov camera devised by Mr. Ike himself and built by a specialist optician in Kyoto. The camera boasted a 15cm corrector plate and fast f/2.5 optics. Needless to say, the goal was to discover a new comet, but his search concluded without a single discovery. (He managed a long-established electrical appliances store.)
    After many years I visited Tosa city where he used to live. The building on which his observatory stood has been changed to a multi-purpose building and the rooftop dome was long gone. Ishidonomori Mountain, which I had climbed with Mr. Ike, was shining with never-changing gracefulness in the northern sky, as if nothing had happened over half a century.


February 10
(to continue from February 4)

    In those days, when you found a comet, things didn't happen quickly. There was no Internet and no fax facilities. All the discoveries were reported by astronomical telegrams.
    I lived in one of the row houses inhabited by the poorest of the poor. We had no telephone connection and I had to ride a bike to the telegraph office whenever something urgent happened. Consequently, Tokyo Astronomical Observatory might have found it difficult to communicate with me, a discoverer of comets.
    One week had passed since the discovery and I was told something unusual had occurred. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but according to a postcard from Mr. Minoru Honda, Comet Seki-Lines was reported to have brightened. Around that time, the IAU Circular provided the orbital elements calculated by Dr. Cunningham. It gave perihelion at April 1 of that year with a heliocentric distance of only 0.03 AU. This unusually close encounter with the sun implied that potentially this comet would become a great comet.
    Regarding the discovery of this comet, Mr. Shigeru Kanda of Japan Astronomical Study Association said that the discovery of a comet by an amateur so far away from the sun was uncommon. Many of the discoveries by comet hunters were made in the vicinity of the sun, but my discovery was made when the comet was nearly 180 degrees away from the sun and as far south as -40 degrees in declination. Consequently, Mr. Tomita of Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, Mr. Ichiro Hasegawa of OAA, and others asked me what had made me search that particular part of the sky. My reply was given in the previous entry in my diary.
    There is one more episode to tell you about the discovery of this comet. Here enters a mysterious person called Koichi Ike, a long-time resident of Tosa city (20km west of Kochi city). He had been interested in astronomy for many decades. You could tell how long ago it was from the fact that he actually observed Comet Okabayashi-Honda in 1940 (on the eve of the breakout of World War II) and Comet Cunningham in the following year. Perhaps, none of you have seen these comets. I have a recollection that when I was a third grader I read an article in Shokokumin Shinbun, a newspaper for young readers, about Comet Cunningham having become a great comet in the evening sky. Mr. Ike told me that the comet had appeared majestically in the autumn evening sky of November with a trailing tail in the constellation of Aquila. This comet appeared in Juza Unno's science fiction "The Martian Army" serialized in the same newspaper. It is this novel that stirred my interest in comets. A young boy fascinated by the universe looks at the big sky from the elementary school playground and grows up to discover comets. And he has the honor of having his comet's orbit calculated by Dr. Cunningham he admires. Life is full of strange coincidences and happenings. One of these strange coincidences is my visit to Juza Unno's birthplace who authored "The Martian Army".
    Unno wrote mysteries mainly in Tokyo, but the idea of "The Martian Army", which popularized science fiction in Japan, was said to be formed at his birthplace in Tokushima city. About 10 years ago, I visited his home and actually sat at his writing desk in his study. It was a small Japanese-style room surrounded by sliding paper doors. The old, somewhat desolate pictures painted on these doors resembled the barren landscape encountered by the crew of the rocket from the earth when they landed on Mars. Novels in those days were accompanied by illustrations drawn by master illustrators to excite the reader's interest.
    In his novel a group of space explorers landed on the moon supposedly for the first time to find an empty tin can there. This sort of plot could be conceived only by science fiction writers and heighten the reader's anticipation for more suspense.
    Comet Ikeya-Seki of 1965 approached the sun at a very close distance of 0.006 AU. Comet Seki-Lines turned out to be a prelude to the discovery of Ikeya-Seki.

February 4
    This is February 4th, the beginning of spring in the lunar calendar. On this day every year, I reminisce about the time I discovered Comet Seki-Lines at my roof-top observing platform, which was also used to hang laundry.
    Late at night, I drove toward the observatory, but, not quite sure of weather, decided to wait on the farm road near the observatory. In a clear patch in the southern sky, the stars in the area of Canis Major and Puppis were coming and going. The second magnitude star Zeta Puppis was shining more brightly than usual. The discovery drama of Comet Seki-Lines on February 4, 1962 began unfolding near this star.

    It is often said: "To discover a comet, you should not want to find one." The discovery of Comet Seki-Lines is a typical example of the success with this mind-set. And the legendary comet discoverer Mr. Minoru Honda adds that to discover a comet the lens of the telescope must be optically of the highest quality. The 87mm-aperture f/7 refractor I was using at that time was the best of the master mirror maker Mr. Namura's. Combined with the matching 35mm Erfle eyepiece it displayed bright and almost three-dimensional razor sharp star images. This helped to detect faint comets in spite of a smallish aperture of the lens. My mind was forever drawn into the world of the stars by the images of unsurpassed beauty created by the superb lens. This was undoubtedly a very important factor for the discovery.
    This lens helped me to detect a faintly glowing comet in Hydra under bright moonlight on the morning of September 19, 1965. This was the very important discovery which turned my life around. This lens, small enough to sit in my palm, became the beacon that illuminated the universe for me.
    Returning home from work late at night on February 4, 1962, I climbed onto my roof-top observing platform (which doubled as a laundry drying area) as soon as I had walked through the gate. In the southern sky the magnificent winter Milky Way appeared as the waterfalls of glittering light. My lens began wandering through the glittering waterfalls with my mind free of any ambitions. This was my well-established routine for sweeping the sky. There was no desire whatsoever to find a comet quickly. I was completely mesmerized by the gracefulness of the constellations seen through the lens crafted by the master and forgot all about the passing of time.
    It was a little before 24:00, the start of the new day, that I spotted the image of a fuzzy comet near the second magnitude star Zeta Puppis. It was so low in the sky that a part of the 3.5-degree field of view was blocked by the roofs of the houses in the south. This was nothing short of a miraculous discovery. And incredibly, another observer in Arizona, USA, was watching the same area of the sky low on the southern horizon.

    My reminiscence was interrupted when I saw a police car coming toward me with the revolving red emergency lights. They might have thought the presence of my car suspicious. It was the second time that this had happened.
    It was one kilometer to the observatory. Encouraged by the clearing sky, I decided to go to the dome.

(to be continued)


December 28
    Many of you may not be aware of existence of two Ikeya-Seki comets. The second Ikeya-Seki (C/1968 Y1) was discovered on the morning of December 28, 1968. The time difference between the first sighting of the comet by Mr. Ikeya and the second sighting by me was only 5 minutes. This difference testifies that how seriously the two observers were searching the sky and that once they detected any change both would turn their telescopes immediately to the spot where the change was taking place. I think both of us were observing under extremely harsh conditions physically and mentally.
    This comet was discovered in the early morning of a day when we were struck by a very strong cold wave. The comet was low in the southeastern sky and I remember it was at 10th magnitude. Mr. Ikeya was using a 15cm reflector at the shore of the lake of Hamanako in Shizuoka prefecture, while I was observing with 20x12cm Nikon binoculars in Kochi city.
    This comet is unforgettable in that it showed me a future direction for my comet search. Until the discovery of this comet, I had been looking for a new comet using a comet seeker alone. However, this discovery became a turning point in my observing and I began photographic observation as well as astrometric measurement using a reflector.
    In those days, the precise astrometric measurement of comets and minor planets was a very difficult task for amateurs who were not adequately equipped. I think it was in 1969 when I made the first positional measurements of a comet and reported the results to the Smithsonian. This stunned Dr. Marsden and asked the late Mr. Koichiro Tomita at Tokyo Astronomical Observatory: "How on earth is Seki making positional measurements?" In those days, comet observers were highly valued because even professional observers making positional measurements were very few and could be counted on five fingers. In these circumstances astrometric observation by amateurs was simply unthinkable.
    Among those few professional astronomers and observatories engaged in comet observation were Dr. Elizabeth Roemer of the U.S. Naval Observatory at Flagstaff, Dr. George A. Van Biesbroeck at Yerkes, Skalnate Pleso in Slovakia, Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, and Kwasan Observatory in Japan.
    For amateurs observers, making positional measurements was not easy. First of all, they were unable to get hold of accurate stellar catalogues. Comparators to measure positions on photographic plates or film were not widely available either and the only one purchasable in those days was a photographic plate measuring instrument made by Shimadzu Corporation. However, the price was 500,000 yen at the value of the 1950s, prohibitively expensive for an amateur like me who was "sponging off" my parents at that time.
    In a difficult situation like this, I came up with an idea and put it to practice. It was a rather bizarre method and have kept it to myself until now. It was also the important starting point for developing the present observation method of comets at Geisei Observatory.

(to be continued)

November 28
Standing at the site of discovery of Comet Okabayashi-Honda

    Many decades ago, on October 1, 1940, Comet Okabayashi-Honda was discovered. On the compound of Kurashiki Observatory cosmos flowers were flourishing all over; it was the peak of the autumn season.
    At 4:30 in the morning Mr. Shigeki Okabayashi, cloaked in heavy winter clothes, set up in a corner of the yard a 75mm-aperture English-made Ottway refractor with a magnification of 30. He began searching horizontally in the direction of Leo, which was rising over the town. About half an hour later, he found the image of a comet faintly glowing white at 8th magnitude roughly at the center of the one-degree field of view. It was right in the middle of Leo's large Sickle. He had no recollection of seeing a nebula there until then. While he was beginning to confirm the motion of the object, a nearby textile factory's siren sounded to announce 5 am and the sky had grown considerably whiter.
    In those days it was an iron rule for amateurs to confirm the motion of the object before reporting the finding. He decided to do so on the following day, but unfortunately, it turned out to be rainy. The bad weather continued until October 3rd. 　　
    Mr. Minoru Honda, competitor and protege of Mr. Okabayashi, was observing in the mountains of Setomura, Hiroshima prefecture. Early in the morning of October 4, Mr. Honda was searching the predawn sky with a 15cm reflector at 23x and found an 8.5-magnitude comet in Leo. Immediately, he telephoned Kurashiki Observatory asking them to verify his discovery. He was told by Mr. Okabayashi, who was then trying to confirm his finding, about his discovery made on October 1. Thus, it became the first discovery of a comet by Japanese and the comet bearing the names of two Japanese observers was born.
    Coincidentally, the Pacific War broke out in December that year and both Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Honda were drafted to be sent to battle fields. Mr. Okabayashi met a tragic death in the "Awamaru" incident (sinking of the hospital ship) in 1945, but Mr. Honda made a miraculous discovery of a comet in war-time Singapore. My book "Seeking Unknown Stars" elaborates how he made the discovery.
    After returning to Japan in 1947, he successively discovered comets under dark skies of postwar Japan and brightened the spirits of Japanese people suffering from extreme poverty. In 1950 he moved to Kurashiki Observatory and looked after it for many years.
    My visit to Kurashiki this time was 15 years after Mr. Honda's passing. I remember that I often ran into beret-wearing Mr.Honda when I was walking in the nearby Bikan Historical Quarter. I thought that even then I might bump into Mr. Honda walking with long strides on a street somewhere in town. This district was preserving the scenes from the past; the white-plastered walls of the houses reflected on Kurashiki River, black rickshaws resting at the foot of a willow tree... But the figure of Mr. Honda, the person who symbolizes Kurashiki, was no longer there. As it was a regular closing day of the observatory that day, no body was around and it was very quiet. I came across a "nekobarai" mask dedicated to scare cats off. I recall that, about 20 years ago, when I was trying to walk to the observatory from Kurashiki railroad station, I lost myself while walking along a narrow street. Suddenly, a stray cat appeared from nowhere and began walking ahead of me. I just followed it and found myself entering the observatory compound. It turned out to be a "hangout" for stray cats.
    Beside the main observatory dome there was a small white dome used to search for comets. It was built as a monument at the very place where Mr. Okabayashi discovered a comet. Right here, an extraordinary discovery drama unfolded 68 years ago. Over the city of Kurashiki there must have been awesome starry skies. Around that time I was watching the predawn northern sky from my upstairs window in Kochi. Once the night fell up on the city of 200,000 inhabitants, it turned into a world of stars. The whole sky was studded with myriad stars glittering with phosphorescent glow. Mr. Honda and Mr. Okabayashi were observing under perfect starry skies like this.


October 21
    The sky has been perfectly clear since the morning.
    Forty-three years ago today Comet Ikeya-Seki plunged into the sun's corona. The day was clear without any hint of cloud in the sky just like today. I saw white powdery substance floating abundantly in the air. What differed then from today was my observing site at home had been crowded with reporters since the morning of that day.
    Comet Ikeya-Seki was passing through the 1-million-degree corona. Everybody was looking up at the sky from curiosity as well as anxiety, believing it was the day the comet would expire. There was a report from Hawaii, which was ahead of us in time, that the comet had been seen broken up in pieces. Meanwhile, at Norikura Solar Observatory in Japan, their coronagraph captured the comet approaching the sun early in the morning and they announced that the comet had evaporated in the corona at 1.15 pm. We were terrible shocked by the news. The magnitude of the comet was announced to be minus 12, brighter than full moon, according to an observation by Mr. Minoru Honda at Kurashiki Observatory, who had managed to see "the last" of Comet Ikeya-Seki.
    The truth is that the comet reappeared in the early morning sky a week later having undergone enormous changes no one had expected. However, there was one person who had expressed the impression of this Comet Ikeya-Seki in music as if predicting the healthy reappearance of the comet. Living halfway around the world in the southern hemisphere, he composed impromptu the
music titled "Comet Ikeya-Seki" after seeing the comet plunging into the sun. In the southern hemisphere Comet Ikeya-Seki was easy to see and people were agitated by a thought of impending "the end of the world". On NHK 1 TV they reported a serious-looking ritual conducted in Nepal's capital, Katmandu, with the King's attendance, to ward off evil spirits. Mr. Jose Caleyo of Cuba, the composer of "Comet Ikeya-Seki", must have seen with the sense of awe the comet streaming across the daytime sky and turned his impression of the comet into music.
    The music Ikeya-Seki was delivered to me shortly. It was no doubt a work of a professional composer and the musical notes beautifully captured the appearance of the comet streaming across the sky with strength and splendor. Was Mr. Caleyo, like me, convinced of the survival of the comet ?
    Forty years have passed since that day, but the music Ikeya-Seki had never been played during these years. What is Mr. Jose M. Caleyo like? What thought was he trying to put in the music when composing it? The mystery was just about to be forgotten forever unsolved when good news was delivered to me. A TV personality nicknamed "Postman" was going to travel all the way to Cuba to visit Mr. Jose Caleyo. He will eventually find out if Mr. Caleyo is still active in Cuba as a composer after the passing of 40 years. Postman has left Japan with a photograph of Comet Ikeya-Seki and my personal letter to Mr. Caleyo. The letter notes that a minor planet was named after him as the composer of Comet Ikeya-Seki. I am hoping, almost praying, that my letter safely reaches Mr. Caleyo.
    A comet becoming music is unheard of. I hope this music is going to be played by his music band and that I can have an opportunity to hear it. I am dreaming about the day when it is performed under the beautiful starry sky in tropical Cuba. "Keep going, Postman. Where are you now?


October 11
The day I got a lucky break

    At 5 o'clock on the morning of October 11, 1961, autumn stars were brightly shining in a cloudless sky over Kochi city. The sky over the city with a population of 250,000 was absolutely quiet and twilight was encroaching on the horizon. I was absorbed in numerous drifting stars across the lens. My mind was completely free from any kind of thought. It was only 10 degrees above the horizon and I was searching as if trying to push the brightening twilight back.
    At that moment I happened on a great chance. Among sharp images of the stars, my crystal clear mind captured a faint pale image of a comet. It was the very moment when my life irrevocably changed. Until then　I was struggling under dark water. It was the moment I sprang to the surface of the brightly shining water. It is very strange that one's life can be changed by an opportunity you encounter. As soon as I found that glow I was convinced it was a comet. It was because I knew fully well from my long experience of comet search that in the vicinity of Beta Leonis was there no object which I might mistake for a comet. The new comet C/1961 T1 was 7th magnitude and sufficiently bright, but the coma was as small as 2' across. It could have been easily missed unless you were using excellent optics, as it could not be distinguished from a faint star.
    The comet which turned my life around had left for a long journey to the edge of the Solar System with an orbital period of 800 years. The same day, forty seven years after the discovery of that comet, I was searching Leo at Geisei observatory using my comet seeker, just like that fateful day. Needless to say, I could not see any comet, but, while looking through my comet seeker, my heart was full of satisfaction that I had been watching the stars I loved so much for half a century since that day.
    That 9 cm comet seeker still shows me the stars at times. Though it has retired from active duty, it sometimes accompanies me to public lectures and, standing next to me on the stage, makes my talk more interesting. The lens never forgets the very image of the comet and excitement of the discovery.


August 31
First minor planet discovery by Project Geisei

    Since the completion of the new 70cm reflecting telescope and subsequent establishment of Project Geisei undertaken by Muraoka, Shimomoto, and Seki, the first substantial achievement was accomplished by the discovery of minor planet 2008 QV3. This is a faint minor planet found on August 24 during the patrol with the 70cm telescope. It was observed the following day (August 25) and its provisional orbit was calculated by Mr. Syuichi Nakano and reported to the Minor Planet Center. It is the first success in so many years at Geisei and was made possible by the efforts of Mr. Shimomoto, Mr. Muraoka, and others. There aren't many minor planets brighter than the 19th magnitude and I believe this discovery owes to the large aperture of the 70cm telescope.
　It is reported that Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory discovered a new minor planet around the same time. When I visited the observatory to give a public lecture last summer, I told the audience that the location of this southern island would be advantageous for discovery of new objects in summer. I selfishly thought this could have contributed to their discovery.
    We are hopeful that this newly discovered object will be observed for many years to come and given an official number leading to the naming of this minor planet.


August 21
    In old days in Kochi, the Bon festival (an annual festival to welcome ancestral spirits back to family altars) was celebrated according to the lunar calendar. It was around this time of year or a little later. On the day of welcoming or sending off the family ancestors, a torch was lit at the front gate at night to celebrate the festival. Late at night, when the torch of pine was about to burn out, we would begin to feel cool autumn breezes. The following is a story from those old days when Bon torches were lit at the front gate.
    On warm summer nights, neighbors would bring out their benches onto the street in front of their homes and gossip away till late while cooling themselves with fans. On one such night, an elderly person found a comet in the western sky. It caused an excitement among the people who gathered there. According to them, they saw a comet, 2 feet long, in the mid-altitude western sky straight ahead of the street. The comet glowed like a will- o-the-wisp (ignis fatuus) in a bluish color and did not disappear until late at night. Around the benches they would talk about politics, what's happening around them, their discontent about life, and finish off with horror stories and chats about starry nights. But that night, the appearance of the comet added to the nightly entertaining stories.
    This comet was no other than Mrkos (C/1957 P1), which was discovered in early August that year (1957). Comet Mrkos suddenly dominated the morning sky as a naked-eye comet, and then it reappeared majestically in the evening western sky. I understand that the first discoverer of this comet is Mr. Kuragano living in Yokohama. He found a comet trailing a faint tail in twilight with the naked-eye, while he was waiting for the sunrise at the 8th station of Mt. Fuji in late July, 1957. Later, he reported the sighting to Tokyo Astronomical Observatory. Among those who knew the discoverer of this comet, it was known for a while as Comet Kuragano. This reminds me of the eclipse comet of 1948. It was at first called comet McGann, the name of the American pilot who had discovered this comet.

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.