I visited Subaru Telescope, Japan national large telescope, on the summit of Mauna Kea at the Big Island of Hawaii. Mauna Kea is a volcano whose height is over 4000m.

Some international telescopes were located there, and Subaru Telescope was one of them. The cylindrical dome was very large because it included the telescope, which had 8.2m diameter primary mirror, and observational instruments. The way of collecting light and optical-infrared observational insturments were explained by an instructor in the dome.

After visiting Subaru Telescope in the daytime, I looked at southern cross, omega centauri and so on halfway up the mountain at night.

I felt the earth's power to generate a volcano and the spirit of inquiry of those who had built and operated telescopes on the summit. For visiting Subaru Telescope, please see here. (You should read the caution carefully for your safety.)

I went to see the special projection of MEGASTAR-Ⅲ FUSION which was exhibited when Kawasaki Municipal Science Museum relaunched.

MEGASTAR was clearly different from other planetariums because it projected millions of stars which buried gaps between thousands of visible stars. In a clear night, it sometimes seems that lots of stars are scattered in the background of a real starry sky. MEGASTAR may visualize that. In addition to fine stars, bright stars' sharpness, color and twinkling were excellent. The brilliance of Venus was particularly impressive.

Finally, I could see the projection of FUSION type a little. It seemed to be exchanged for regular projection of MEGASTAR-Ⅲ. FUSION means the union of optical projection and digital one. It could mask stars which were hidden behind buildings, mountains and so on, stars and digital images were projected vividly. The direction was exciting by using the FUSION projection.

I would like to see MEGASTAR-Ⅲ in the new situation beyond planetarium for explanation of a starry sky.

A projector is Universal Model 23/3 manufactured by Carl Zeiss Jena. The planetarium began to operate in 1960.

It seemed that the projector with majestic presence formed the atmosphere of planetarium. The moon and expression of the sunset were beautiful. After the projection, some people took commemorative pictures in front of the projector.

"Nagoya City Science Museum" http://www.ncsm.city.nagoya.jp/en/index.html

A projector is UNIVERSARIUM Model IX by Carl Zeiss which was installed in 2011. This projector adopts the fiber optic projecton system and the light from the lamp is directly led to holes in the star mask. Therefore the projector's star images were incredibly bright and sharp in spite of the 35-meter diameter dome.

Digital images are projected by 6 projectors operating together. When the optical projection system was exchanged for the digital projection system, the star positions of them were completely consitent.

I visited the traditional planetarium and the latest one. Both of them were attractive and crowded with lots of people. I hope to visit other planetariums.

I watched the first public exhibition of KAGAYA's new movie "Starry tales" at SunShine City in Tokyo on 19 March. Fortunately, I met Mr. KAGAYA and had a little talk about starry skies berore start of the movie.

I was impressed by moving pictures, which I had seen as still ones. Graphics were awesome particularly after the title "Starry tales" appeared. I wish I could have watched them longer.

Hayabusa space probe was launched in 2003 and rendezvoused with asteroid Itokawa in 2005. Although it had a lot of troubles when it landed on Itokawa, tried to get samples from the asteroid, and returned to the Earth, it managed to come back to the Earth with a capsule including the samples.

Hayabusa separated the capsule from the main spacecraft and burned up on re-entry to the Earth. The capsule, which fell to Australian desert, was successfully retrieved and some minute particles from Itokawa were found in it after detailed analyses.

The movie "HAYABUSA -BACK TO THE EARTH-" shows a seven-year voyage of Hayabusa. I've watched it in theater twice .

Besides, I listened to a lecture of Dr. Kawaguchi, the project manager of Hayabusa, at Komaba campus in Tokyo. I knew many events from the start of the project to the present through the lecture.

I also try to draw images of starry skies with landscapes and buildings. It is better to use them for illustrations of tales. Moreover, I will release a tool for everyone to make starry skies easily by PC.

I deal with various topics about the universe. I will add contents of this website gradually.