LtE in CMO #258

From  William SHEEHAN


 

@. . . . . . . Dear Masatsugu,

 

  Vergy good indeed to get your message -- no need to apologize for the delay.  It sounds as if you have been exceedingly busy.

  Understand the press of things with your impending retirement -- perhaps, and I hope, you will now have more time for the other things that interest you.  Sixty three is still young.

 

  Will you continue to maintain a presence in Kyoto, or will you be henceforth exclusively based in Fukui?

 

  Please present my kind regards to Jeff Beish.  You will have much to talk about on Mars, and I only wish I could join you.

 

  Tom Dobbins, Gary Seronik, Leif Robinson and Ron Dantowitz, who gathered in Boston for the Saturn occultation, were overwhelmed by the clouds, sounable to obtain useful observations.  We are hoping you will achieve better success at the March occultation.

 

  I have been busy here with many things. My professional work as a psychiatrist takes time, but even avocationally there have been a number of projects that have been absorbing me -- John Westfall and I are pushing forward with the transit of Venus book, which I hope to have in press by the end of the year. If we achieve this deadline, we may be able to encourage observations not only of the Venus transit but the May 2003 transit of Mercury as well. My colleague is going to be treating the 19th century transit expeditions except Janssen, whose work I am hoping to tackle, soon.

 

 Part of my plan is to introduce his attempt at photographing Venus through a primitive form of cinematography, designed around the mechanism of the Colt revolver, as a way of eluding the vexsome "personal equation."  There have been some preliminary discussions that I might play a role as an adviser to a multi-national production effort to do a TV documentary on the transit -- and if this comes to pass, I am pressing to have a camera crew to Nagasaki.

 

   Mars, and the upcoming approach of 2003, are never far from my thoughts.

We have been tantalized by the preliminary Mars Odyssey findings of significant amounts of water-ice over a large part of the planet. This is especially interesting in regard to the Martian flare observations. Tom Dobbins, Martin Gaskell and I are planning to write up a definitive history of the Martian flare observations and would be extremely gratified if it were summarized in the CMO Mars report. As soon as we have the latest revision, I shall send it to you. The flare observations will undoubtedly be one theme of the 2003 opposition efforts.

 I am looking forward to observing Mars with you in 2003 -- at the moment, Australia is looking like a better opportunity than So. Africa, if only because of the greater political security.  I would also welcome the opportunity to visit you in Japan -- to taste your famous seeing -- and to take part in any conferences that may be held regarding Lowell, both the Japanese traveler and Mars observer, or the transit of Venus expeditions.

 With the highest esteem,      

  (5 March 2002 email)

 

@. . . . . . . Dear Masatsugu,

 

 This is late development: I've been invited to accompany the ASP as a guest lecturer for a Mars opposition expedition to Chile, August 2003.  It would involve three nights in Buenos Aires, some time in the Chilean lakes, and four nights of observing Mars from the Andes.

 

   Any interest?  If so, let me know, and I'll send more details.  

            (13 March 2002 email)

 

@. . . . . . . Dear Masatsugu,

 

 Thank you, my good friend, for all the information.

 I am pleased that you obtained at least a glimpse of the Saturn occultation.  We shall await eagerly news of the next events from Europe.

 

 I don't know yet the details of the Chile trip -- I was flattered to be invited -- but it will not preclude my making another expedition, to Australia (and New Zealand) via Japan.  I don't yet have the dates but Mars will be this close only once in our lifetimes and I should like nothing better than to observe with you.  I should also be very pleased to see the Lowellian sites you mentioned.  Percival Lowell has always intrigued me, because of Mars but also because of his fascination with travel and adventure. I should also be pleased to visit Nagasaki of course. Have you visited the site where Janssen observed the transit of Venus?  It would make a grand addition to my chapter on him if we could describe the site in some detail.

 

 Next week I am leaving for a brief astronomical interlude -- I am going to meet John Westfall, ALPO transits recorder, to discuss the Venus transit book, also to spend a week or a week and a half with Don Osterbrock, the former Lick Observatory director, working on stellar evolution and galaxies.

 

 Please, though, let us hold on to our dream of observing Mars together at the opposition in a little over a year from now -- it would give me the greatest pleasure to see it either from Australia or Japan or both.

 

 My best wishes to you for the holiday,

                           (20 March 2002 email)


  Bill SHEEHAN  (Willmar, Minnesota, USA )

sheehan4@en-tel.net


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