CMO/OAA (only viewable with Internet Explorer ７)
Bill SHEEHAN in Japan from 22 April to 9 May 2004
22 April 2004: Bill
SHEEHAN safely reached Japan and via
the Kwansai Airport
arrived at the Fukuoka Airport around 22 hrs JST, and met by
Masatsugu MINAMI and Tadashi ASADA. They stayed the night at Hakata.
Bill SHEEHAN and Masatsugu MINAMI at the Fukuoka Airport
23
April: After visiting Mangyo-ji and the Kushida Shrine(ß)
in Hakata, Bill moved to Nagasaki 
with Masatsugu, and made a 
courtesy call to the Nagasaki City
Hall. They were also led to the Nagasaki City
Science Museum by the Director KAKIMOTO, after visiting the Siebolt Museum
of
Nagasaki (à)which is located at Narutaki where Philipp Franz von SIEBOLT opened a medical school. Reception of Bill SHEEHAN was held in a restaurant near the St Paul Street (named after the St Paul City in Minnesota)
24 April: On
the morning of 24 April, Bill met Tatsujiro MATSUMOTO who detected a glint
Phenomenon on 15 August 2003.
The first day of the 2004 OAA Annual Convention was
h
eld in the afternoon at the Nagasaki City
Science Museum.
Bill was commended and awarded an OAA Medal as 
well as Tom DOBBINS and Don PARKER on their distinguished work on
Mars flares in 2001.
Bill and T MATSUMOTO
OAA President Ichiro HASEGAWA and Bill
The following record three certificates of Commendation (originally in Japanese).
OAA Certificate of Commendation
presented to
William P Sheehan, Esq
We
are pleased to honour your outstanding contribution to the observation of
specular reflections on Mars. After studying long discarded observations made
in the 1950s, you predicted with Thomas Dobbins that flares would be observable
in Edom Promontorium in June 2001, and
you 
encouraged observers to
monitor that area to test the prediction. Specular reflections were actually
observed from the Florida Keys
on 7 and 8 June 2001.
We would like now to acknowledge your shedding new light on some buried observations made by the OAA Mars Section members in the 1950s. On the occasion of the OAA Annual Convention, held on 24 April 2004, at Nagasaki, we highly commend you and honour you by presenting the OAA Medal for your distinguished role in the prediction of the Martian flare phenomena.
Dr. Ichiro Hasegawa,
President, the Oriental Astronomical Association, Japan
---------------------------------
OAA Certificate of Commendation
presented to
Thomas A. Dobbins, Esq
We are pleased to honour your outstanding contribution to the observation of specular reflections on Mars. After studying long discarded observations of flares observed in the 1950s, you predicted with William Sheehan that the flares would be observable in Edom Promontorium in June 2001, and you urged observers to monitor that region in order to test the prediction. You organised an expedition team with Don Parker and others, and you actually observed Martian flares on 7 June 2001.
We would like to acknowledge your shedding new light on the almost forgotten observations made by the OAA Mars Section members in the 1950s. On the occasion of the OAA Annual Convention, held on 24 April 2004, at Nagasaki, we highly commend you and honour you by presenting with the OAA Medal for your distinguished role in the prediction and detection of the Martian flare phenomena.
Dr. Ichiro Hasegawa,
President, the Oriental Astronomical Association, Japan
--------------------------------
OAA Certificate of Commendation
presented to
Donald C. Parker, Esq
We are pleased to honour your outstanding leadership in the detection of specular reflections at Edom Promontorium on Mars on 7 and 8 June 2001. The flares were predicted by Thomas Dobbins and William Sheehan after they studied observations of flares made in the 1950s, which included observations made by members of the OAA Mars Section.
We would like to acknowledge your wisdom in noticing the prediction and in organising a capable observing team with Thomas Dobbins and others. On the occasion of the OAA Annual Convention, held on 24 April 2004, at Nagasaki, we hereby highly commend you for your detection of the Martian flares, and we award you, as a representative of your team, the OAA Medal.
Dr. Ichiro Hasegawa,
President, the Oriental Astronomical Association, Japan
Late that afternoon, Bill, Tadashi, Masatsugu
together with other OAA Members visited the Kompira-san where the French
team led by Joules JANSSEN observed the Venus Transit in 1874. The pyramid monument
was soon built after the team returned home. The small stone shrine might have
been the same (at least its design) as the one on a photograph taken by Jules
JANSSEN.
25
April: On the morning of the second OAA day, Bill gave an invited talk on
the Transits of Venus
to
the City audience as well as to the OAA Members (interpreted by Ms Michiko
DOI).
Afternoon, Bill, Tadashi
and Masatsugu were led to Hoshitori-yama (formerly called
Ohira-yama when the US team camped in 1874) by
the members of the Nagasaki Astronomical Society. Fortunately everybody could
see every quarter from the rooftop of a newer building.
Toshio SATO, Bill, and N
MATSUMOTO
Refractor the US team used (same background)
In the evening, Bill, Tadashi and Masatsugu left Nagasaki, and droved and reached Munakata City where Tadashi and his family live.
26
April: Here are photos taken at Munakata City
where Tadashi ASADA lives: One is with Tadashi
at his observing site (30cm Meade) and the other is Bill with Koi-nobori (Carp
streamers in May).
Bill,
Tadashi and Masatsugu crossed the Kanmon channel at 
noon and 
arrived at the Saji Astro-Park at the
Tottori prefecture in the evening, but unfortunately 
the sky was totally cloudy.
Here Bill posed at a 103 cm telescope of the Saji Observatory (at Tottori Prefecture)
As to the Koi-nobori, P LOWELL wrote as follows in “Noto” Chap II. Off and On: On all sides
superb paper carp floated to the breeze, tugging at the strings that held them to the pole quite
after the manner of the real fish. One felt as though, by accident, he had stepped into some
mammoth globe of goldfish. The whole sky was alive with them. Eighty square miles of finny
folk inside the city, and an untold company without. The counterfeit presentments were from
five to ten feet long, and painted to mimic life. The breeze entered at the mouth and passed
out somewhat less freely at the tail, thus keeping them well bellied and constantly in motion.
The way they rose and dove and turned and wriggled was worthy of free will. Indeed, they
had every look of spontaneity, and lacked only the thing itself to turn the sky into an ocean,
and Tokyo into a sea bottom with a rockery of roof. Each fish commemorates the birth of a boy
during the year. It would thus be possible to take a census of the increase of the male
population yearly, at the trifling cost of scaling a housetop,---- a set of statistics not without
an eventual value.
27
April: Bill, Tadashi, and Masatsugu drove up and
finally reached Mikuni where Masatsugu lives, and met Takeshi NAKAJIMA. Bill
cannot sit in a Japanese way as Tadashi, but well tastes the powdered tea. At
Mikuni
28
April: Bill, Tadashi, and Masatsugu started from Mikuni, and went to the
ruined area of the Toyama
castle where from we traced the route of LOWELL
via Kamidaki up to Tateyama. On the way we dropped in the
Tateyama Museum where Mitsuru FUKUÉ showed us an explicit evidence that the inn
where LOWELL stayed a night on the way back from Ryuzanshita was the Hosen-bo
at Ashikura, and the “Genial Inkyo” (Chap XVIII) was no other person
than Sanai SAHEKI (or Taion SAHEKI). We are also shown a portrait of the Inkyo.
Here shows FUKUÉ and Bill discussing the inn book of the Hosen-bo
recorded on 13 May 1889 on the 
occasion.
We then detoured to the Hida Observatory, Kyoto University located at the summit of a 1,336 metre-high mountain. Here shows Bill and the big dome as well as the 65 cm Zeiss refractor of the Hida Observatory. The sky became clear but with bad images and it became cold. Bill, Tadashi and Masatsugu stayed the night at a rural lodging house.
29 April: Here
is shown Tadashi and Bill with our caravan car in front of the lodging house
near the Hida Observatory when we set out the 29 Apr schedule. After touching
at Takayama 
(where
we saw a jinrikisha), we detoured to see Mt Ontaké (magnificent
as shown hereß), and finally reached Shiwojiri to see the ruin of the Waki-honjin
where LOWELL lodged on the way back 
from Noto. From the Waki-honjin we traced the Lowell route via Shiwojiri Pass
to Shimo-no-Suwa, and further down along the Tenriugawa river.
Shiwojiri Waki-Honjin
On the top of the Shiwojiri Toge we met Shigemi OKUMURA. Four 
then visited the Kikyoya
at Shimo-no-Suwa (where MINAMI met again Mdm MOROZUMI), and then went along the
Ina Valley
down to Iijima tracing the Lowell
route. At Iijima, it became dusky. 
Here
shows Bill at Iijima, our hoped-for goal.
We dined at a tempura restaurant where OKUMURA showed us an evidence that LOWELL and AGASSIZ went down thru the Tenriugawa river in 1891 (LOWELL second time) on the occasion they tried to climb the Ontaké.
Bill, Tadashi and Masatsugu stayed the night at the same hotel at Ina that we had previously held the Meeting of the CMO Mars Observers in 2002.
As to Ontaké, LOWELL wrote as follows (in “Occult Japan”): In the heart of Japan, withdrawn alike by distance and by height from commonplaces of the every-day world, rises a mountain known as Ontaké or the Honorable Peak. It is a fine volcanic mass, sundered by deep valley-clefts from the great Hida-Shinshiu range, amidst which it stands dignifiedly aloof. …..
30
April: Bill, Tadashi and Masatsugu started from Ina,
and dropped at the Matsumoto Castle whose photo was found in LOWELL’s collection. Then they visited
the Zenkoji Temple
at 
Nagano.
LOWELL focused on the pigeons that were maybe ancestors of
the pigeons Bill saw in front of the Zenkoji-Temple
From Muré to Takada,
while Tadashi drove alone, Bill and Masatsugu took a local train just like
Percival LOWELL from whose window they saw three mountains including the
volcanic Myoko as described by LOWELL.
At Takada, they saw an old arcade system once described by LOWELL interestingly in a different
place (Itoigawa) that was well preserved here. After passing thru Naoyetsu,
Noh and Itoigawa, Bill, Tadashi and Masatsugu reached Oyashiradzu-Koshiradzu
in the evening.
As to Myoko, LOWELL wrote as follows (in “Noto”): Three mountains flanked the farther side in file, the last and highest of the three, Myokosan, an extinct volcano; indeed, hardly more than the ruins of one. Time has so changed its shape, and the snow whitens its head so reverently, it would be possible to pass it by without a suspicion of its wild youth. From the plateau it rose proudly in one long sweep from moor to shoulder, from shoulder to crag, from crag to snow, up into the leaden sky, high into its second mile of air. Subtly the curve carried fancy with it, and I found myself in mind slowly picking my way upward, threading an arete here and scaling a slope there, with all the feelings of a genuine climb. While I was still ascending in this insubstantial manner, clouds fell upon the summit from the sky, and from the summit tumbled down the ravines into the valley, and met me at Naoyetsu in a drizzling rain.
01 May: At Oyashiradzu, Bill stood in the morning in front of the rock-wall on which the huge four Chinese characters “To no gotoku, ya no gotoshi” were engraved just six years before LOWELL saw in 1889 (à).
Bill, Tadashi and Masatsugu then went down to the Etchiu
plain, and visited the place where LOWELL
lodged at 
Mikkaichi.
Passing by Toyama City
thru the high-way, they then arrived at Himi from which they started
finally to enter into Noto! Bill thus reached the 
Arayama Pass. He also investigated some stones which must
have been related with one of the two teahouses at the time of LOWELL. This is based on a recent
suggestion of Kanehiro OSA (OSA will talk about his theory in the Lowell
Conference).
They then took a rest at Wakura,
and finally reached Anamidzu after a long caravan. At the Conference Hall (Kanazawa
Institute of Technology) of Anamidzu, some CMO members gathered and met
Bill (from left to right, ASADA, AKUTSU, Bill, MURAKAMI, MORITA, NAKAJIMA and
NISHITA in the Conference House, KIT; photo by MINAMI).
02
May: Bill strolled around the Conference House in
the morning, and after noon he was on
the sea going on a 
cruising
boat; He thus experienced, with other participants, the sea-route of LOWELL in the Anamidzu bay.
From 16:00, the Lowell Conference started. After the Evening Party, Bill gave a lecture on LOWELL and Mars by the use of the Power Point. Otherwise, MURAKAMI, NAKAJIMA, OBI, and SATO gave talks on the day.
03
May: The Second Day of the Lowell Conference:
Under the chairmanship of ASADA, Bill talked about BARNARD 
and LOWELL; the former drawings remind him of “Hira-gana” 
written in a cursive way, and the latter of “Kata-kana”
written in a linear way. MINAMI also talked twice the day about LOWELL’s Mars, the first (morning) being
related with general metaphysics, and the second (afternoon) for the 1894 Mars
of LOWELL.
Bill talked with T NAKAJIMA in the dining room
04 May: The
Third Day of the Lowell
Conference: After the talk by OSA on the new 
interpretation of the Arayama
Pass, we moved to another place to participate in
the Lowell Festival of the Anamidzu
Town, where Bill listened to a song in praise of LOWELL, and he answered questions put by
the audience.
T Nakajima took a chair
Song in praise of LOWELL
Bill gave talks twice at the Conference House in the afternoon and in the evening. The evening meeting was the first part of the 12th Meeting of the CMO Planetary Observers.
Tadashi ASADA left Anamidzu to drive since he was bound to teach from the next Thursday (6 May) at the Kyushu International University.
05
May: At noon,
the Mars/Lowell Conference (and the Second Day of the 12th
Meeting of the CMO Planetary 
Observers)
was closed. Bill said good-bye to CMO members, AKUTSU, MURAKAMI and NARITA at
the JR Wakura-Onsen Station, and then Bill with MINAMI, NAKAJIMA and NISHITA
went to follow LOWELL’s Noto
Highway via Amada Togé down to Ima-Isurugi (guided by OSA’s
route). 
They
then went a real highway to finally drop in MINAMI’s home at Mikuni, and
further in the evening NAKAJIMA and MINAMI led Bill to the Fukui City
Observatory since the sky became quite clear. Bill enjoyed visually a
nicer image of Jupiter at meridian by our favourite 20cm Refractor (right
photo: Bill with Takashi NAKAJIMA).
06 May: Bill
and Masatsugu visited the Takidanji Temple at Mikuni where the 
oldest Star Map made in the 16th Century in Japan was
exhibited (à).
ßHere is shown Bill tasting a Tohu lunch at Mikuni.
Then they moved to Kyoto by train with a good view of the Biwa Lake. At Kyoto, Bill lodged in a Temple (Chishaku-in, belonging to the same sect as the Takidanji).
07
May: At Kyoto,
Bill visited the Ryoanji, Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji 
Temples, as well as the Kiyomidzu-dera Temple
where LOWELL must have 
visited.
Bill and Masatsugu then went down to Amagasaki where they were met by Tatsujiro MATSUMOTO and M OHNISHI, and MATSUMOTO led us to SAHEKI’s house at Itami.
Bill was there received cordially
by the SAHEKI family, especially Tsuneo SAHEKI’s wife and son with his wife and
grandsons/daughter. The famous 20cm Telescope (here shown with SAHEKI in 1956)
was at hand as well as several 
drawings
and documents made by T SAHEKI (scanned by MINAMI, and will be used by Bill).
Incidentally we were informed that SAHEKI’s wife had come from the Kyozo-bo
at Ashikura, Tateyama where LOWELL visited.
Saheki Family and the 20cm telescope SAHEKI used T SAHEKI in 1956
08 May: In the
morning, Bill and Masatsugu visited the observing site of the second 
French 1874 team (Delacroix and Chimizou) at the Suwa-yama, Kobé,
where a monument stood.
Bill at Suwa-yam, Kobé
Then they moved to Yokohama by getting on board the Shinkansen Nozomi. On the way they caught Tenriugawa while Mt Fuji was unseen because of haze.
Masami, Masatsugu, Bill and Toshio SATO at Nogéyama, Yokohama
At 
Yokohama, 
they were met by Toshio SATO and M MURAKAMI, and visited the
observing sites of the Mexican 1874 teams at Nogéyama and Yamaté.
As well, they saw the Monument for the success of the Mexican team built in
1974 on the occasion of the centenary of the 1874 Venus Transit. In the
evening, they dined at the Yokohama China Town.
Yokohama monument of the Mexican team in 1874
09 May and the last: Bill
spent the last night at Yokohama, and,
after moving by the JR Narita Express, departed 
from Narita at 15:00 JST to Minneapolis by the Northwest Airline as
scheduled. We hope he is having a good flight. Bill dashed down the following
note at a waiting room. Minami-san, who has been
my guide and friend, and I complete today our astronomical tour of Japan. We have visited all the major
sites of the Transit of Venus expeditions of 1874, and paid our respects to the
memory of those observers; followed Percival LOWELL’s work in Noto; and viewed
historic drawings of Mars by Saheki-san. It is a great success! Many thanks,
Arigato, Bill.