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(meteorobs) visit Mr. Ito (Nippon Meteor Society): impression

Hello everybody,

Yesterdayevening we have had a meeting with Mr. Daiyu Ito, one of the 
active meteor photographers in the Nippon Meteor Society (NMS -Japan). 
Mr. Ito visited the Netherlands for his work and we took the opportunity 
to meet in his hotel in Amsterdam and exchange information about our 
activities and equipment. Present besides Mr. Ito were: Robert Haas, 
Casper ter Kuile and me (all of DMS). We had brought with us our equipment 
and some recent articles/photographs etc. Mr. Ito brought photographs of his 
equipment and some recent articles.
During this evening we discussed many items. Of course a lot of technical 
information exchange on meteor photography (the Japanese NMS is one of the 
very few amateur meteor organizations besides our Dutch Meteor Society where 
serious multi-station orbital determinations with photographic and video 
equipment are conducted), but also the plans for the upcoming Leonids and 
many more, including Draconids and a meteorite fall. 
Below a brief abstract of our conversations.

Mr. Ito told us that has no opportunity to observe the Leonids from 
abroad, so he stays in Japan and plans observations there. But he 
suspects that Japan will just miss the true storm peak because twilight 
starts early. Also, weather is a concern as he pointed out.

The photographic equipment Mr. Ito uses is quite similar to what we use 
in the Netherlands, but deviates on one major point. The system he 
employs combines four Canon T-70's mounted together on a block with 
combined rotating shutter (which is quartz controlled). The sytem is 
automatized with electronics (we use the command back for that purpose, 
but the principle is the same) that can be programmed in advance. The 
main difference is that while we use stationary cameras (star trail 
images), Mr. Ito's setup is mounted on a parralactic mount (pinpoint 
guided star images). The reason is, as Mr. Ito explains, that he works 
all alone (unlike us, we are usually with a team of at least 4 persons) 
and therfore meteors are easily missed. His setup overcomes the problem 
when time of appearance of a photographed meteor is not accurately known.
There are also some differences in techniques used for measuring the 
negatives which are however rather technical (Hans c.s.: Mr. Ito measures 
the center of a break by measuring both start and end And then 
averaging). Anyway, we exchainched a lot of information about technical 
and practical aspects, film choice etc (Japanese usually use high speed 
1600 ISO films, we use 400 ISO). I am quite sure both we and Mr. Ito 
learned a lot from each other on these aspects and we certainly will try 
some of his ideas! One thing to mention is that Mr. Ito told us that one 
of his colleagues had used infra-red film for the Leonids and they did 
very well on that film (better than normal film), but star images are a 
problem. Also, the eta Aquarids turned out to do very badly in IR!

Mr. Ito has observed the Draconid outburst of 1985. He did not 'believe' 
in an outburst in advance, but when he started his first meteor looked 
like a Draconid. The second too. So he decided to plot the third: 
definitely a Draconid! Many more followed that night. Mr. Ito has missed 
the true activity peak, but catched a large part of the descending 
activity with still 1 meteor per 2 minutes when he started. He described 
them as rather faint, but very slow and therefore some were photographed 
(not by him: he started photography only later in his observing career).
After half an hour Mr. Ito started to use a 'ramka' (a device which 
restricts the field of view, for high activity), but he told us that he 
found it very uncomfortable. We told him that we are looking forward to 
next October's apparition and are planning a campaign. Mr. Ito thinks 
that activity definitely will occur, although he was not sure whether it 
would be as high like 1985. Most interresting: he told us that he and 
several other Japanese observers observed a low but definite Draconid 
activity last year (about 1-2 per hour). That suggests good prospects for 
coming apparition.

Mr. Ito calls himself "the most lucky meteor observer in the world". And 
he is right! The reason is, that he has been close withness to a 
meteorite fall in 1996: one of the fragments hit the Company where he 
was employed at that time! He told us that he spend many lunch-breaks the 
following weeks searching the companies terrains for more fragments (in 
vain, allas). He and his colleagues have investigated eye-wittness 
accounts and produced a trajectory of the fireball. Three photographs 
turned up, one very scenic with a meteor above snowy mountain peaks, 
another very spectacular with fragments, a little bit like peakskill. All 
are actaully 'snapshots' taken by people who where photographing the 
scenic mountains, a boat etc. There are also some pictures of the 
airborne dust cloud left by the fireball/meteoroid.

At the end of this very pleasant meeting, Mr. Ito gave us a box with 
Japanese cookies as a present from his country, and we presented him with 
a t-shirt with the DMS logo. And of course, we exchainched reprints from 
articles, photographs etc.
It was very worthwhile to meet Mr. Ito and learn about the Japanese 
activities and techniques. Especially, the exchange of ideas on 
photography was very worthwhile and I am sure both Mr. Ito and we learned 
a lot from it.

- Marco Langbroek
  Dutch meteor Society, the Netherlands