From Richard McKIM
@. . . . . Date:
From: RMckim5374@aol.com
To: cmo@mars.dti.ne.jp, jeffbeish@htn.net
Cc: whitbyu@erols.com, VZV03210@nifty.ne.jp,
haasw@zianet.com
Subject: Re: the late Mr Osawa
Dear
Friends:
Thank you
for letting me know of the death of Toshihiko OSAWA. I was so sorry to hear of
this event, and at a young age too, and following such a long illness. I
thought you might like a few random, extra remarks from myself about his career
as I witnessed it from faraway
I first
corresponded with him in 1982, when Jean Dragesco gave me some of his finely
penciled Mars drawings as examples of his work. From then on for a decade he
participated in the BAA Mars programme, and I published several examples of his
work. Jean told me of his illness back in the 1980s.
I agree
entirely that he was a good observer, especially early on, and a talented
artist. He was always ready to supply original pencil drawings, which must have
taken many hours to copy. He was observing Mars when it was less than 5 arc
seconds diameter, from the 1950s when he started his work, to the 1980s. In
1982 his post- opposition drawings gave independent confirmation of the work of
Ebisawa and the remaining Viking probe that a major dust event had taken place
(1982 October to 1983 January), and also pointed to the epoch at which the
Claritas-Daedalia darkening of 1973 finally disappeared (to be replaced by the
Phasis darkening in the next apparition).
Just
sometimes he pushed the interpretation of his work too far. I should point out
that the 1969 paper about the dust storm published in the ALPO Journal is in fact a record of a spurious event. This I have
discussed in depth in my book on the dust storms, published by the BAA. If I
recall correctly he wrote first of the obscuration of Utopia by dust whereas it
is clear that the NP hood was the obscuring medium. Osawa then produced a chart
showing the spreading of the dust over the desert areas to the east, which may
have had white cloud over them in places, and accomplished this map as the work
of a single observer. No observer at a fixed site has ever mapped a complete
regional storm, and in fact no other observer (including Capen and Miyamoto,
who were both very active in 1969) made any record of this imaginary event.
There were other dust events in 1969, of course, but located elsewhere.
I am sorry
that I never met Osawa, but I did enjoy a long correspondence with him.
With best wishes
Richard McKIM (
BAA Mars Secrion Director