The Story of a Comet Hunter's Life

    This is a strange story not widely known.
    On October 21, 1965, a long time back in the past, an event that would shock the world took place in space. On September 18, 1965 (UT), Comet Ikeya-Seki was discovered. When the first report of the discovery was telegraphed from the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in the U.S.A. to astronomical observatories around the world, Dr. Rigollet of France determined by just looking at the discovery position of the comet that it belonged to the Kreutz family and sent a telegram to report that it would pass perihelion on October 21, about one month later. The announcement from the Smithsonian Observatory via AP-Kyodo News Service surprised many. This astonishing news reads: "The greatest this century? Comet Ikeya-Seki trailing a long bright tail."
    At that time I was reading the newspaper at my home in Kochi city and didn't know what to make of it. Because this comet was observed only once by the discoverers and not bright at magnitude 8 to 9, it was impossible to make any predictions for its future. The comets move in an elliptical or parabolic orbit with one of the foci at the sun. Unless there are at least three observations at an appropriate interval, there is no way to calculate the orbit or predict its future.
    What was Dr. Rigollet's prediction based on? This mystery remains unresolved today. I doubt it was made by his "power of will". Still, it turned out to be exactly right. In a clear sky the comet was shining in the corona like a serpent wrapping around the sun and on its way to perihelion as predicted. I can point out that the correct prediction was made because it was a rare Kreutz sun-grazing comet.
    Let's leave the mystery prediction aside for now. Many ways of observing the comet in the sun's corona were tried. It is extremely dangerous to see the sun directly. It is a majority view that, although comets are made of ice, moving through the one-million- degree corona for several hours it will explode and disappear. In fact, 7 or 8 hours earlier, the comet was "erroneously" observed to be breaking up and disappearing. About 4 hours later (6 hours before perihelion), though, a comet hunter Mr. Koichi Ike confirmed the survival of Ikeya-Seki at the top of tall Bandano-mori mountain in Susaki city risking potentially serious injury.
    A little before noon of the day of the comet's closestt approach to the sun, Mr. Ike came over to my place bringing along a peculiar observing equipment. He called it a "Ike Projection Box". He used a huge wooden crate for a refrigerator (he was running an electrical appliances shop) adding cardboard sheets to it. The idea is to project the approaching comet in the dark box using a 12cm refractor. Unfortunately, that morning, when he was just about to leave his home in Tosa city to come to my place, reporters from "A" Newspaper Company and its associated TV station cameraman forced their way to his home and had him set up the equipment and photograph him while he was posing to observe the comet. They wanted to cover the story of Mr. Ike's new equipment ahead of others. This delayed Mr. Ike's arrival at my home. When he began observing at my "Seki Observatory", the comet was too close to the sun and going around to the other side of the sun. The intended observation was a complete failure and his new "weapon" could not display its power.
    The following morning, I was expecting to see headline news in the papers boasting the invention of the "Ike Projection Box". As expected, I found a big story of the same device prominently positioned on page 3 of the "A" newspaper. When I carefully read the article, I found the device slightly different from Mr. Ike's and his name was nowhere to be found in the article. The next moment, I burst out laughing. The peculiar observing equipment in the story was a hand-made solar eclipse observing equipment that a Dr. Ueda of University of Kyoto had donated to a university in Peru.
    Mr. Ike was infuriated. "They made me spend so much time for their news coverage. How dare did they waste my time! Thanks to them, my important observation came to nothing." When he contacted the main office of the "A" newspaper Company, they explained: "We had very similar reports coming in from Kyoto and Kochi. Unfortunately, we could not publish both stories and decided to cast aside the one from Kochi." Thus, Mr. Ike's observation ended up in a complete failure, but he did a great job for the observation of the comet a few says before and after its perihelion, literally running about after the comet.
    When the comet passed perihelion safely as Dr. Rigollet had predicted and began making its appearance again looking magnificent in the dawn sky in late October, another strange incident occurred.