From Samuel R WHITBY
@ . . . . . . . . . . Dear Masatsugu,
Thank you for sharing your interesting
communications with me. I am glad that Jeff had the opportunity of visiting you
in
Congratulations on your retirement. Your
work will certainly continue in the achievement of your students. I am glad you
are planning to devote your energies to Mars.
I have initiated the paperwork to retire
from state service this year. My job is considered a dangerous one, and the
state makes it possible for us to retire earlier than some other government
employees. I will not stop working but will just work elsewhere, with hopefully
more energy and with time and money left for astronomy.
The last year has been rather
purgatorial - I started to write hellish, but hopefully my situation will have
an end. By the end of the day I am in pain and unable to do much but get ready
for another day. Since the year that
The anecdotes about the shrinking stick
and the visibility of the names of the Martian canals were amusing. I once was
showing the constellations to a young lady, and she said she had seen them
before at a planetarium. She added that at the planetarium there were lines
between the stars and there were outlines for the figures of the
constellations, and she supposed that we were not out late enough for the lines
and figures to have been turned on yet.
We had a copy of a translation of Antoniadi's La Plančte Mars at the RAS Observatory, unfortunately with
no illustrations. I own a copy of Sheehan's The
Planet Mars, A History of Observation and Discovery,
and I enjoy very much his telling of the stories of Antoniadi,
Lowell, Schiaparelli, and others.
The Richmond
Astronomical Society now has a cookbook CCD imager which it is trying to
get operational. Maybe I can use it for planetary imaging in the future.
After an unusually dry and warm winter (I used only half as much heating oil as
usual), we have had sufficient rain for the flowers and gardens to begin to
flourish. I will email you a photo of some of our daffodils. They are
especially appreciated due to the fact that, unlike most of our hybrids, they
are fertile and reproduce by seeds as well as by division.
Enjoy your retirement and stay in
touch. Thank you for continuing to send the CMO.
Sincerely,
(
@ . . . . . . . . . .Masatsugu,
Here is a photo of a patch of Narcissus bulbocodium,
hoop petticoat daffodils.
(
@ . . . . . . . . . Dear Masatsugu,
I am sending a photograph of the grave of
Reverend John Weatherford. He is buried out on a farm near
Some would say that the grave site is insufficiently grand, but I rather
like it the way it is.
Best wishes,
(
@ . . . . . . . . . .Dear Masatsugu,
Thank you for notifying me about the mailing of CMO#258.
A couple of nights ago I saw John Barnett at the observatory, and before
I could say so, he said that he hoped we could have the CCD imager up and
running before Mars comes around again. I think we will.
I have been planning to write and
mention that we ( David and Tyler
and, separately, Randy ) have enjoyed Comet Ikeya-Zhang. It was
observed here numerous times in the evening sky, and several times more
recently in the morning. Today the comet was estimated at magnitude +3, with a
tail of 2-3 degrees in length. There actually seemed to be two tails, so it
seems that gas and dust tails were visible. The magnitude estimate was made by
comparing the comet to out-of-focus images of the bowl stars of the Little
Dipper. The comet was easy with the unaided eye, in spite of moderate light
pollution and annoying lighting from neighbors' so-called security
lighting. With binocculars, the comet was quite
impressive. Randy recently wrote that he had a good view from out in the
country.
In 1965 I saw and marveled at Ikeya and Seki's great comet. At the time I was a teenager
who played at farming with my Grandfather. We got up early and went out before
dawn to feed the farm animals, and I, one could say, independently discovered
the comet in the morning sky. I had a small telescope and had seen several
telescopic comets, Comet Humason and Comet Burnham
among them, and I recognized at once that Ikeya-Seki
was something else altogether, a real monster comet, greater, I think, than
Hale-Bopp. I told my science teacher at school that
there was a great comet in the sky in the morning before dawn. Hearing the
before dawn, he sort of made a frown, and I doubt that he ever saw it. With the
slow pace of communications in those days, I did not learn the name of the
comet until after it had gone, and I missed the sun-grazing aspect completely.
Sky and Telescope has reported the unfortunate death of Hyakutaké. His loss is something of a shock, coming so
unexpectedly. I am sorry about his passing and sad for the grief of his family.
His great comet is especially memorable in that the blue color was readily seen
visually and that its motion against the background of stars could be seen in
real time. Randy saw it away from city lights and noted the great length of its
tail.
I have not seen the cherry trees
in
Sincerely,
(17 April 2002
email)
Sam