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Ms. Hisako Koyama: from Amateur Astronomer to Long-Term Solar

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Ms. Hisako Koyama: from Amateur Astronomer to Long-Term Solar PUBLICATIONS Space Weather COMMENTARY Ms. Hisako Koyama: From Amateur Astronomer 10.1002/2017SW001704 to Long-Term Solar Observer Key Points: Delores Knipp1,2 , Huixin Liu3 , and Hisashi Hayakawa4,5 • Ms. Hisako Koyama was a dedicated solar observer, and a long-serving staff 1Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA, 2High Altitude member of the National Museum of 3 Nature and Science, Tokyo Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA, Department of Earth and Planetary Science, 4 • She created a multidecadal record of Faculty of Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, Graduate School of Letters, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Japan, sunspots that serves as a backbone of 5Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan the recent sunspot number recalibration • We tell her little-known story so that Abstract The path to science for a girl of any nationality born in the early twentieth century was her contributions to science may be known formidable-to-nonexistent. Yet paths were forged by a few. We present the little-known story of one of Japan’s premier solar observers and her contribution to the world’s understanding of sunspots and space weather cycles. Ms. Hisako Koyama, born in Tokyo in 1916, became a passionate amateur astronomer, a dedicated solar observer, and a long-serving staff member of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Correspondence to: D. Knipp, Tokyo. As a writer for amateur astronomy journals she advised many on the details and joys of sky viewing. [email protected] She created a consistent, extended record of sunspots. Her multidecade archive of sunspot drawings is one of the “backbones” for the recent international recalibration of the sunspot record that provides insight into Citation: space weather reaching back to the early 1600s. We detail her contributions to the citizens of Japan as an Knipp, D., Liu, H., & Hayakawa, H. (2017). ambassador of astronomy and her international contribution to understanding the symmetries and Ms. Hisako Koyama: From amateur asymmetries of the solar cycle. We comment on the value of her continuous record of sunspots and on her astronomer to long-term solar observer. Space Weather, 15, 1215–1221. https:// tenacity in promoting a science that links to space weather. doi.org/10.1002/2017SW001704 Received 6 AUG 2017 1. Introduction—A Passion for Observing Accepted 9 SEP 2017 Accepted article online 27 SEP 2017 There are some in this world who will find their way to science no matter what the impediments. Ms. Hisako Published online 2 OCT 2017 Koyama was such an individual. With some encouragement and mostly on-the-job training, she created a multidecadal sunspot record that is a masterpiece of consistent sunspot observations. In Japan she was an ambassador for astronomy, writing numerous short articles in regional and national Japanese astronomy bul- letins. Born into 1916 urban Japanese society, she graduated from a Tokyo high-school for girls in the 1930s. In so doing she achieved at that time a level of education of which many girls could only dream. Ms. Koyama was fascinated with objects beyond Earth’s atmosphere. An account in the pictorial magazine, Asahigraph (1951), reports that she was intrigued by a “shooting star,” and had read two or three astronomy books, including a “red book” (reference) guide to telescope making (Kibe, 1936) prior to beginning her observational career in the early 1940s. Her comments in an article for Japan’s Oriental Astronomical Association (OAA) indicate that after visiting the Tonichi Planetarium at Yuraku-cho in Tokyo (Koyama, 1971), she assembled a small telescope and polished the lens with the help of a telescope shopkeeper (Koyama, 1972). Referring to World War II, Renshaw and Ihara (1997) noted that “During city-wide air-raid blackouts, Hisako Koyama would drag her futon into the yard and hide under it, lighting her variable-star charts with a small flashlight.” In her own words, Ms. Koyama reported that “I made my first step towards astronomy by star watching with the astronomical chart in hand.” Her interest in the heavens grew during the spring of 1944 as she began making sunspot observations with a 36 mm X 60 refractor telescope, which was a gift from her father. According to her article for the fiftieth anniversary of the OAA, as a young woman Ms. Koyama wanted to join OAA’s Moon section in 1944; however, finding that her 36 mm telescope was insufficient for lunar observing, she turned to the Solar section (Koyama, 1971). After 1 month of trying during solar minimum period, she managed to get her first sunspot sketch and gathered enough courage to send it to the then OAA Solar section pre- sident, Professor Issei Yamamoto. Then, after receiving an encouraging reply from Yamamoto, written, “Thank you for your observation report. Yes, they are sunspots,” she began what can best be described ©2017. American Geophysical Union. as an extraordinary career dedicated to amateur astronomical observations and professional solar observa- All Rights Reserved. tions (Koyama, 1971). KNIPP ET AL. MS. HISAKO KOYAMA: SOLAR OBSERVER 1215 Space Weather 10.1002/2017SW001704 Figure 1. (a) Ms. Koyama with the 20 cm telescope in 1951 (courtesy of Asahigraph); (b) a full view of the Nikon 20 cm telescope with Ms. Koyama inset reproduced from Koyama (1985). Through 1945 she developed her skills for sketching sunspots via “attenuated direct-viewing” under the guidance of Professor Yamamoto (Horaguchi & Nakajima, 2001). In May 1946 Ms. Koyama, by then a war widow, began making semiregular solar observations via eyepiece projection with a Nikon 20 cm refractor telescope at the Tokyo Science Museum (henceforth referred to by its current name: National Museum of Nature and Science, NMNS) with the supervision of Mr. Sadao Murayama, Chief Astronomer. The image from the equatorial mount telescope, which was in use between 1931 and 2005, was projected to a sheet of paper as a 30 cm image where Ms. Koyama detailed the visible solar features and added notations related to impor- tant features, observing (seeing) conditions, and time. Ms. Koyama quickly made a transition from amateur to staff observer. She attended the first meeting of the Japan Society for Astronomical Studies in November 1945 and was introduced by Mr. Otani, her predecessor at NMNS (Shigehisa, 1995). From 1946 onward Ms. Koyama was a staff member of the NMNS where she observed with the same 20 cm refractor telescope (Figures 1a and 1b) through her official retirement in 1981, and for an additional 10 years as a Fellow of the Museum. According to O’Meara (1987) and Fujimori (1994), she posted monthly reports to several astronomical institutions including the Swiss Federal Observatory in Zurich and the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Through 1984 she located and categorized more than 8,000 sunspot groups, which were published in her monograph entitled, “Observations of Sunspots 1947–1984,” (Koyama, 1985). Over her lifetime she made more than 10,000 solar sketches (Horaguchi & Nakajima, 2001). 2. Staff Years at the Museum: Public Work and Career 2.1. Outreach In addition to making her precision solar drawings, Ms. Koyama was deeply involved in “outreach” and planetary and variable-star viewing. Some photographs show her surrounded by children or the viewing public at various telescopes. Ms. Koyama was often the public face of astronomy to museum visitors as she explained astronomical phenomena and demonstrated equipment. Sometimes her public interaction occurred many times a day, especially on Saturdays and holidays. She organized special events and observa- tional campaigns for eclipses. Close approaches of nearby planets, or planetary conjunctions, brought many extra visitors and contact time. Saturday nights were frequently dedicated to night sky watch events (Fujimori, 1997; Sato, 1997). Ms. Koyama also supported a monthly seminar on star constellations (Koyama, 1981). She wrote short columns and articles related to telescopes, astronomy, and the Sun and made yearly reports to the Astronomical Herald published by the Astronomical Society of Japan between 1967 and 1989. KNIPP ET AL. MS. HISAKO KOYAMA: SOLAR OBSERVER 1216 Space Weather 10.1002/2017SW001704 (Fujimori, 1994). In her published account of the 21 July 1963 solar eclipse she described the observation campaign at Bihiro organized by the NMNS, in which about 40 amateur astronomers and 700 members of the public from all over Japan participated. Between the gaps of “many coming and going clouds,” they could observe the “inner corona, prominence, and the diamond ring” (Koyama, 1963). 2.2. Sun Drawings, Special Observations, and Published Works Ms. Koyama lived within walking distance of the NMNS where she worked a busy schedule of outreach and observing alongside her boss, Chief Astronomer Sadao Murayama. She recounted her efforts in a 1981 memoir that documented 35 years with the Museum (Koyama, 1981). Her observation time was planned for twice a day, in about 1 h intervals. Sunspots were year-round phenomena requiring drawings in frigid winter and sweltering summer, all the while dealing with cloudiness characteristic of coastal Japan. Frequently, nature did not cooperate. Ms. Koyama noted that the worst condition “is not rain, but a day with clouds frequently coming and going!” She joked that she could “probably win a competition for endurance, if there were one” (Koyama, 1981). Sunspots and their groupings were Ms. Koyama’s vocation and avocation. Early in her career she published a description of how to count sunspots (Koyama, 1949). Subsequently, she described the methods of counting sunspots in several of her articles (e.g., Koyama, 1965) and emphasized the importance of being consistent in one’s own counting standard, citing discussions with Professor Max Waldmeier, Director of the Swiss Federal Observatory in Zurich, Switzerland, who visited her at the NMNS in September 1963 (Koyama, 1965).
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