The Story of a Comet Hunter's Life

    In 1956, the year Comet Crommelin reappeared after a 28-year-absence, Doctor Issei Yamamoto was spreading the word widely that aurorae could be seen at mid-latitudes including Japan due to the Sun's increased activity. Aurora-like bright nightglows were seen across the country, though they were not real aurorae. In fact, when I got up at 2 in the morning to search for Comet Crommelin, I found the night sky over Kochi was so bright that it would be mistaken for a full-moon night. This phenomenon was also witnessed at Yamamoto Observatory in Shiga prefecture.
    The predicted path of Comet Crommelin was to go through looming Leo rising in the pre-dawn eastern sky. Being aware of the inaccuracy of the predictions, I searched in the usual way by moving from overhead gradually down toward the eastern horizon. I saw many clusters and galaxies, but as I had been well experienced in comet search by then, I ticked them off as non-cometary objects at a glance. Then, when the 15cm reflector's eyepiece field moved slightly to the north of the Lion's large sickle, a strange light grazed the edge of the field and moved away. I immediately swung back to center the object in the field. It's there! A suspicious comet-like diffused hazy glow.
    This was a totally unexpected visitor. "Is it Crommelin?" My heart began pounding hard like rapidly ringing bells. Mr. Yamazaki's face crossed my mind and Dr. Yamamoto's smiling face, too. They must have been hoping for my discovery of the comet. The comet overlapping with their faces glows brightly. "Send a telegram quickly!" I became very anxious. From my memory there shouldn't be any comet wondering around that area. "It must be Crommelin!" That mysterious 28-year period comet had just returned! That morning, I sent a telegram, first to Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, then to Yamamoto Observatory and to its discoverer Mr. Masamitsu Yamazaki, who discovered it 28 years earlier and must have been waiting for good news from me. The telegram was written in the coded words peculiar to the astronomical community in line with the conventional universal telegraph. The director of Tokyo Astronomical Observatory must have been startled having received a comet discovery telegram from a nameless observer in the countryside of Kochi. It was not an ordinary comet, they must have thought, and passed it on to the main observatories and other research institutes in Japan.
    At the same time, an international telegram arrived from Minor Planet Center in Copenhagen reporting the discovery of a new astronomical object. It was a comet discovered in Czechoslovakia and its position was identical with mine. Comet Crommelin was discovered ahead of me by Skalnate pleso Observatory. What a pity!
    In those days at Skalnate plesso several professional comet hunters were searching the whole sky using a specially-designed wide-field binocular comet seekers. Beginning in 1946, immediately after the end of the world war, the observatory director Dr. Antonin Becvar as well as Antonin Mrkos, Ludmila Pajdusakova, and others had been very successful in comet discovery beating the world's comet hunters hands down. During those difficult 10 years, I had continued to search in vain.
    However, the discovery of Comet Crommelin was the first memorable achievement for me. From that time on, my search for a new comet began again, and five years later, I discovered Comet Seki C/1961 T1 in Leo in October 1961, the same constellation where I had discovered Crommelin. By then both Mr. Yamazaki and Dr. Yamamoto had been gone, but I sent the discovery telegram to them anyway. "I placed your telegram at his alter and shared the joy of the discovery with him," Mrs. Yamamoto wrote me. I was deeply moved by her letter and the emotion at that time is still fresh in my mind.