From Thomas A DOBBINS
® . . . . . .Date:
Subject: Contact!
Dear Masatsugu:
I received your e-mail at home just before leaving for work,
so I am replying in haste from my office (in the spirit of the old Russian saying dating from the Soviet era: "We
pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.") Please see my remarks inserted
below...
>
Dear Tom,
>
>
I am so sorry I have been silent for a long time. I know I owe
>
you for a couple of kind emails, and I know it must
have been
>
quite rude to be silent. There have been however a lot
of
>
destructive elements around me, and I have been
depressive.
I'm very happy to hear from you, old friend. Rest assured, I
did not mistake your silence for rudeness, but merely assumed that you have
been very preoccupied with other matters.
>
One thing was because I was very busy with several Mars
>
matters, meetings, writings and usual routine business
about
>
the CMO. Did I write that I suddenly suffered from heavy
>
hematuria on 19
February? Since then I often consulted
the
>
hospital where an attending doctor for my hypertension
stays,
>
but no doctor at urology could not tell the reason
though they
>
used supersonic, CT scanner as well as MRI. I saw last a heavy
>
hematuria on 5 May (the last
day of our CMO Meeting), and since
>
then it seems natural for about nearly two months.
I was aware (via Bill Sheehan) that you were in poor health,
but I did not know the nature or severity of your illness. I too have been
plagued with health problems in recent months in the form of blood clots in my
right leg. I underwent surgery late in May to remove defective veins, but I am
up and walking again. I wish you a recovery as rapid as my own has been.
>
Another destructive element in me was the Iraq War. I expected
>
no war there, and I expected your Secretary of the
State and
>
Tony Blair to quit the Neo Conservatives, but they showed up
>
nothing but the Uncle Toms. By the War, we supposed
some
>
hundreds of Bin Ladin were
born in the Arabian world, but after
>
the War it looks Americans forgot at last the 911. It
was
>
however really extraordinary to make two ultra-modern
bombings
>
successively in
>
programs in the
>
different from those we watched. Recently I read Noam Chomsky's
> Media Control, and I became more negative, though he
is
>
positive for the American society. On the occasion of
the CMO
>
Meeting we discussed about the 1938 Wells-Welles fuss
about the
> Martian Invasion, and we noticed that the ruling class
had
>
studied deeply the masses and media control since then.
. . . . . . . .
Like Bill, I often feel rather isolated by my political
views, particularly my skeptical attitude toward the recent American
misadventure in
As the father of a 14-year old son, I am deeply concerned
with the course of American foreign policy that at present seems determined to
turn him into a soldier. As I once told you, I had no ancestors in
In many ways I feel like a "stranger in a strange
land" here - the United States is a country every bit as saturated with
patriotic and religious fervor as any in the Islamic world (our local mullahs
simply chose a different book than the Koran), and even though I was raised as
a Roman Catholic and educated by Jesuits I have an attitude toward religion
that ranges from indifference to hostility, although I retain a deep and
abiding respect and affection for the Jesuits!
As I watched the invasion of Iraq unfold on television, I
experienced a rather strange mixture of emotions that ranged from pride in the
capabilities of the American military to an unshakable conviction that the
whole affair was not only utterly unnecessary but would result in my country
being widely despised around the world. I was also struck by the thought that
many Germans no doubt experienced the very same emotions in 1940.
Much of my professional work as a research chemist in recent
years has involved novel rocket propellants (and, it may surprise you to learn,
also the isolation of anti-cancer agents from soybeans). The propellant work
frequently places me in close collaboration with the military. It may gratify
you to learn that in private conversations many professional military officers,
even those of high rank, share our views about the
I am consoled (and you should be as well) by the fact that
Iraq is certainly not the first example of utter folly in American foreign
policy - witness the occupation of the Philippines in 1898 and the subsequent
decision to convert the place into a colonial vassal state, resulting in a
decade of brutal guerilla warfare with local insurgents. The great American
writer Mark Twain had many wise and witty criticisms of that occupation that
retain their value if one simply substitutes the word "
>
I am still burdened with several things to be sorted out (the
>
CMO is also quite belated), but I came here at
>
June as it were for a change of air. I am here helped much by
>
Ishadoh and Wakugawa, and
am observing Mars on a rooftop of a
>
high building at
>
and managed for a week to make devices how to prevent
the
>
strong wind we are suffering these days. The sky is
here good,
>
and the growing Mars gives me good views. I feel sorry
for the
>
>
exhibition of the Great Mars but I cannot help them.
>
>
The observations however on the rooftop with a not-acclimated
>
telescope are not so easy as the case made at the
>
Observatory which I used since 1954, and this night also
>
Ishadoh shall come to amend something wrong about the
Takahashi
>
equatorial tripod (he is an engineer graduated from
the
>
>
Ryukyu Dynasty, but the place I occupy has long been occupied
>
by the US Army, and so newly developed recently.
Another reason
>
I chose here is because there is a large medical hospital near
>
here which has been there since the occupation times,
as I
>
hear.
>
>
I think I am reading your articles in
S&T with interest, and
>
also maybe many in the near future. I think also I
read your
>
comment about ToUcam or on R(G)B method, but I myself
don't
>
admit the composition of G from B+R, as to which I may write
>
you again.
The June issue contains a popular nostalgia piece about the
1956 opposition; the August issue contains two articles, one about observing
the Tharsis volcanoes, the other, inspired by the recent discussion of wedge
prisms in the CMO, is about atmospheric dispersion.
>
Once you kindly invited me to the ALPO convention at your Town
>
to be held soon, but I am afraid I cannot come because
of my
>
health problem and the intensive observations of Mars
in
>
pursuit. I hope you will admit I will take another
chance to
>
see you. I also feel very sorry for
>
longed for the 2003 opposition.
You will be pleased to learn that we will have a very good
group here in August that will include Walter Haas, Don Parker, Jeff Beish, Ed
Grafton, Eric Ng, and Tan Wei Leong.
I have arranged to take the Asian contingent to visit the Cincinnati
Observatory (where the 28cm Merz refractor used by
O.M. Mitchell has been very beautifully restored) and the Allegheny Observatory
in
>
We may make a series of observations from the end of July to
>
the beginning of August to watch the area of Solis L
to check
>
the Martian flares here at
> Murakami). Since the members are few and
so may almost watch
>
the monitor. We would be thankful if you could give an
advice
>
to us to do such a team observation. I hear there will
also be
>
a watching at a branch of the NAO.
I'll write more extensively in a couple of days about
this...
>
Thank you otherwise for your kindness in sending me information
>
about various things including wedge prisms and
others.
>
>
Anyway I hope I shall be able to more recover, and I hope I can
>
come to write more to you soon.
>
>
With best wishes,
>
>
Masatsugu
® . .
. . . .Date:
Subject: A few suggestions concerning
observing methods
Dear Masatsugu:
In your last communication you made the following request:
"We
may make a series of observations from the end of July to the beginning of
August to watch the area of Solis Lacus to check the Martian flares here at
Hopefully a pall of dust will not interfere with the
attempt! Based on my experiences in the
Using a 30 cm Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain
with a Barlow lens to provide a suitably large image scale, we found that the
color video camera at our disposal (the Adirondack "Planetcam,"
which is very similar to if not identical to the Vixen C10-4M model) gave
markedly inferior images compared to a more sensitive monochrome camera used in
conjunction with a Wratten #15 yellow filter. The
yellow filter greatly reduced the effects of atmospheric dispersion and gave
excellent contrast of the planet's albedo features.
The appearance of the Edom flares was first noticed on the
television monitor, which as you can readily imagine is a very comfortable way
to observe for a prolonged period of time, as it has far more eye relief than
even the most sophisticated ocular!
This summer I will be employing a small short-wave radio
receiver powered by a 9-volt battery that is tuned to the precise WWV time
signal transmitted by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards at a frequency of
10 MHz. (These devices are available here for about $50 and are widely used by
observers of occultations.) Listening to the
monotonous output on a speaker is surely a form of torture, so signal will
simply be connected to the audio input connector of the VCR.
In
If any flares do appear, I hope that you will follow up on Audouin Dollfus' insightful suggestion to determine if
their brightness changes when a polaroid
filter is rotated. I'd keep such a filter installed in the ocular of one of the
telescopes that will be used visually.
I would also like to make mention of a clever suggestion
recently published in Sky & Telescope
for detecting Phobos and Deimos.
Rather than a conventional opaque occulting bar made of metal, use a strip of a
deep blue or violet gelatin filter (Wratten #47)
cemented to the field stop of an ocular. First calculate the diameter of Mars
at the focal plane of the telescope, then cut the
strip of gelatin filter slightly wider than this dimension. This little device
effectively eliminates the glare from the disk of the planet but still allows
the location of the planet to be determined, a valuable cue to the location of
the faint satellites.
Bill Sheehan returned from
Kind regards
Tom DOBBINS (