2 0 0 9 P a r i s / M
e u d o n
IWCMO Conference
Masatsugu MINAMI: A History of Mars Observations in
Another talk presented at the IWCMO conference, Meudon, 19th
September 2009
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ow I would like here to talk about the earlier
days of the OAA Mars Section which I suppose are not well known in the foreign
countries. We should say this is nothing but an earlier short history of the
Japanese Mars observations. I hope you will consent implicitly or explicitly
how much E M ANTONIADI influenced the Japanese observers in the following.
As you know, the Tokugawa
Shogunate closed the Japanese country to
foreigners for three hundred years or so. During the period every genre of the Japanese
original cultures, especially, art, literature, drama, or so on was quite
matured without foreign obstructions, while the scientific fields in
Before the advent of the modern astronomy
there were few persons who watched the planet Mars through telescopes. Just we
recall two persons before the Meiji Restoration (1868) one of whose names were
IWAHASHI and the other KUNITOMO:
Zenbei
IWAHASHI (1756-1811) constructed a lot of small refractors. He was originally an
optician. Ikkansai KUNITOMO (1778-1840) was
originally a swordsmith, but is known to have made a
few Gregorian telescopes having a 6.2 cm speculum. Both observed the Moon and
Saturn, Jupiter and so on, and the latter made a series of observations of the Sunspots
in 1835. He surely spotted the satellite Titan of Saturn by the Gregorian
telescope. At least there is left a record that IWAHASHI watched the planet
Mars, and I once saw his drawing of Mars where a dark spot is found near the
centre of a disk. Somebody says it might have been Syrtis Major!?
The
Tokugawa Shogunate collapsed and the Meiji Emperor
Era was restored in 1868: Fortunately Japan was free from the colonial days at
those times. But even on the occasion of the
1877 great apparition, the Japanese 
island was still amidst of a civil war and the brilliant red star was
likened to a hero who died in the war, as to which Edward MORSE who first
visited Japan in the very year also alluded. Even in the case of the 1892 Mars
apparition no real astronomical action occurred in
It was
in 1888 that the Tokyo Observatory of the University of Tokyo was constructed,
and in 1908, the Astronomical Society of Japan was established in Tokyo,
and on the occasion of 1909 apparition its monthly Journal called Tenmon Geppoh (The Astronomical Herald) wrote about the planet Mars with
several names of observers including G SCHIAPARELLI, but unfortunately I don稚
know whether any definite observation of Mars was made on the occasion.
The Oriental Astronomical Association (OAA)
was established in 1920 in
And as the great apparition of 1924 was
approaching, a trend towards the Mars observations occurred. There were
published a few books in Japanese on Mars. Here a very important and
unforgettable observer appeared whose name was Kanam
NAKAMURA (1904-1932).
NAKAMURA
started his carrier as a Mars observer in 1920 by the use of a 10 cm refractor,
and in the following year he was enrolled as a member of the Kwasan
Observatory: In 1922 he used an excellent 18cm Zeiss-Sartorius
refractor at Kwasan as well as a 25 cm Brasher
reflector. In 1924, he was acquainted with an Englishman in Kob
called Richard Andrews SCHOFIELD who had a 22cm Calver
reflector. NAKAMURA痴 golden age was 1924 (as well as
in 1926) and in 1924 he became a member of William H PICKERING痴
group. For example
he received
several letters from W H PICKERING such as
I shall be glad to publish a full set of six of your drawings in the report, .
I hope that six drawings may appear in Report No.23 next winter
et al.
Here
is shown one of NAKAMURA痴 drawings produced in 1924
which shows the region around Solis L.
In 1925 NAKAMURA wrote a report 1924 Mars Opposition in The Heavens (OAA Journal), and in 1928 he was able to use a 30cm Cooke refractor at Kwasan.
NAKAMURA kept up with his observations for 11 years, but unfortunately committed suicide
in 1932.
NAKAMURA
was also skilful in making the specula and influenced the followers including Shigemaro KIBﾉ (1912-1990). KIBﾉ was also an important
person who influenced the following Mars observers. Tsuneo SAHEKI (1916-1996)
also corresponded with NAKAMURA, and asked to make a mirror for him but in vain
because of NAKAMURA痴 death.
There
was a small gap after the death of NAKAMURA, but in 1933 (at opposition on 1
March) some observations were carried out by KIBﾉ and Eitaro
DATﾉ (1912-1953) et al, and at the end of 1933 a first report of the Mars
Section of the OAA was published (November issue of The Heavens). Tsuneo SAHEKI started his observations this year by
the use of an 8cm Newtonian (at the age of 17). In the following year Haruhisa MAYEDA (1914-1952) joined the Mars Section.
In
1935, a total of 19 members were active and 301 drawings were obtained. MAYEDA
observed 140 times. In 1937, 14 members were active, out of which SAHEKI took a
total of about 101 drawings by the use of the 31cm Cooke refractor at Kwasan
and others. DATﾉ used a 26cm KIBﾉ reflector and obtained 35 drawings. Notable
was the fact
the 35 pastel drawings were produced by MAYEDA by the use of a 21cm speculum
which was polished by himself. Here are shown three of
his colour drawings (made on 19 May, 20 May and 1 June 1937 JST respectively
from left to right).
We
should add that in 1937 KIBﾉ wrote an excellent chapter on Mars in a book, and
this was influential to the followers including Sadao
MURAYAMA (1924- ) and others. Here, as usual, three tendencies were introduced
how the observers at that time regarded concerning the presence of the canals.
As a forerunner who denied the canals, E E BARNARD
was first picked out, and ANTONIADI was the second. Full Mars maps of ANTONIADI
(1930) and LOWELL (1905) were also shown in the chapter.
Here is shown
the telescope of DATﾉ: And in the right picture the man in spectacles on the
left hand side is SAHEKI, and the right-hand smiling person in the same
photograph is DATﾉ in 1937.
As abovementioned,
SAHEKI in 1937 stayed independently at the Kwasan Observatory,
On the occasion of the 1939 great apparition, SAHEKI and
MAYEDA were absent because they went to the front of the so-called China
Incidents. Mars Section was directed by DATﾉ at that time. In this year Sadao MURAYAMA first observed Mars by a 7 cm speculum at
the age of 15. Just 70 years ago from now.
The
apparition in 1946 visited at the first post-war time, but it was a difficult
year. Just it was recorded that MURAYAMA observed with DATﾉ chez DATﾉ, and SAHEKI
observed by the use of a 46 Calver telescope at the
Yamamoto Observatory. SAHEKI noticed a precursory state of the Nodus Laocoontis (named by
The post-war observations were well
recovering: In 1948 SAHEKI started by using an excellent 20cm mirror polished
by KIBﾉ, and MURAYAMA got a position at the National
Science Museum in Tokyo which 
was equipped with an excellent Nikon 20 cm refractor.
However KIBﾉ, DATﾉ and MAYEDA were fallen ill and the latter two caught
consumption and unfortunately soon passed away. Instead several newcomers
appeared like Shiro EBISAWA and Ichiro TASAKA and a
total of 11 members were active. In 1950, 17 members of the Section observed
and obtained a total of 450 drawings. In 1952, Toshi-hiko
OSAWA joined.
In 1952 MURAYAMA succeeded in shooting the
planet by a camera, where the long curved Thoth-Nepenthes is shown. His
drawings are here, produced in the same year.
At least any of you knows one of the persons
here. This was taken in
Here also we 
shall show the 31cm Cassegrain owned by Sadao MURAYAMA: The mirror was polished by KIBﾉ.
Finally we show a portrait of Shigemaro
KIBﾉ here (left-hand-side in the photograph: The other person is MURAYAMA).
KIBﾉ was known as a very handsome person.
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e stop here speaking about the further
details of the activity but just would like to pick out three outstanding
observations made by the OAA Mars Section at the post-war period: First is a
set of observations of the rise and fall of the area of Nodus
Laocoontis: It was found side by side just to the
east of Nodus Alcyonius.
Here we first show a long series of the drawings produced by Sadao MURAYAMA from 1948 to 1973. Nodus
Laocoontis looks to have changed because of the sand
moving from year to year, but appeared to exist quite long. These long
observations were possible from any country only if anyone is conscious of the
phenomenon:
The following is SAHEKI痴 R駸um of the variation of
Next we shall
touch a bit about the flare phenomenon of
Incidentally
we show the observational styles of SAHEKI in 1956 who was using his favourite
20cm Newtonian @ f/10.
Thirdly, we cite here the event of the 1956
Noachis great dust cloud: The drawings here are the ones made by MURAYAMA. A
cudgel-like dust disturbance is clearly shown. The location was designated by
the dotted lines. Unfortunately it may not be easy to see the dotted boundary
on the screen. Two drawings are separated by two hours.
He also
succeeded in taking pictures of the dust on TriX Pan films. These are taken just after the drawings. Note that
the brightening of the dust looks different from the visual observations. I
suppose this kind of difference also is given rise 
to in the
case of the ccd images. And the third one was taken a
few days later where the dust was expanded.
The
yellow clouds or dust clouds had hitherto been observed several times from the
older days, but this 1956 case showed a unique important significance in that first
trapped was the initial state of the dust disturbance. We should say this was
the first that caused a rise of consciousness concerning the emergence of the
dust storm. However it was still inadequate in the sense of chasing the
development of the early dust. Hourly observations of the dust storms have been
scarce, and it has sometimes been conceived that any storm was like a Hurricane
or Typhoon. Even now this problem is still pending. It is unfortunate that any
spacecraft does not pay attention to the morning side of the Martian surface,
as to which I already cautioned in the preceding talk.
Finally
I would like to mention two more Japanese observers. One of them I mention is
an excellent observer who appeared like a great comet but disappeared soon. His
name is Reiichi KONNAﾏ (Rei-ichi
KON-NAﾏ, 1950-, n
Reiichi HORIGUCHI), whose Mars observations 
are known no
more than those made in 1971 and 1973 to me.
In
1971, the planet was at opposition on 10 August, and was closest to the Earth
on 12 August with the maximal diameter 24.9 arcsecs.
It was 
on 22
September that the great Noachis dust storm was entrained. As to KONNAﾏ
drawings in 1971 it should be remarked that the descriptions of the fine
structure of the perimeter of the south polar cap are interestingly detailed in
addition to the quite superb brushing of the dark markings. The photo-images
are made by the use of the stacking method of several excellent images to make
the grains to be finer.
I
certainly remember that he chased the 1973 dust storm also near Solis L. I hear
however he quitted observing Mars since 1975. As shown here his drawings and
photo-images in 1971 appear still superb and are now a kind of legend in
His
25cm F/7.6 mirror was the one made by
KIBﾉ. He used an Or 4mm eyepiece to magnify the
images.
Last
but not least we should not forget to mention about Shotaro MIYAMOTO
(1912-1992) whose activity was unique and important: He was a full professor of
Astrophysics of the Kyoto University. He was active once when he was young as a
member of 
the OAA
Planetary Sections and observed visually the planet Jupiter and so on, but
began to observe the planet Mars intensively at the Kwasan Observatory from
1956 to 1973 for 17 years until the year of his retirement. The motivation was
caused by his original witnessing of the 1956 dust emergence and this implied
that the experience of the witnessing of the dust emergence fully powered the
interest at least in him in the meteorology of the planet as a long-life work.
In 1971, he obtained a total of 571 drawings and in the last year, 679
drawings. Both years, the dust clouds were furious.
I
shall close for now, and thank you very much for listening. This is the ending
mark in Japanese (and Chinese).
Masatsugu MINAMI,
Director, the OAA Mars Section, Japan