November, 1995
The December issue of the Japanese publication Sky Watcher profiled Nakamura, Utsunomiya, and Tanaka and their experience in finding deVico.
These three amateurs come from different parts of Japan and have different means of observing. All, however, love to search for comets. The September morning of deVico's recovery was especially crisp and clear here in Japan. By the way, Japan Standard Time (JST) is 9 hours ahead of UT.
Yuugi Nakamura, who is an official worker in Aichi Prefecture, escapes the light pollution of Nagoya by driving to as dark a location as possible. He then uses 12cm Nikon binoculars (sorry, no other details available) which are on a rather sturdy alt/az mount for his observations. On the morning of discovery, he had slept in his car until 03:00 JST. Rising and beginning to sweep the Eastern sky horizontally, he was looking for comet Bradfield when "the bright object jumped into the center of my view!" While he thought it might be a globular cluster, he concluded rather quickly that it was neither a globular nor Comet Bradfield... but rather a new comet. He said one of his first thoughts was (excuse my rough translation) "I bet there are at least 10 people in Japan alone who have discovered this; it's so bright!" This was at 04:00 JST (1995/9/17 19:00 UT). Wanting to make sure, he recorded the object's position and kept observing until 04:50 JST. Shortly after 05:00 JST, he called the Japan National Observatory to report. According to Sky Watcher, his was the first reported sighting.
Shougo Utsunomiya is a farmer who lives in Kumamoto which is in the mid-western part of Kyushu Island. His farm is on the north side of Mount Aso where he observes from a relatively light pollution free site. Utsunomiya san built his own roll-off roof observatory in one of his pastures; the observatory is about 3 minutes walk from his house. He searches for comets with 15cm Fujinon binoculars which are also mounted alt/az. Utsunomiya san started observing at 03:05 JST and just [again, my rough translation] "had a feeling I would find something; the sky's condition was go good". At 04:10 JST, he saw what looked like "a greenish chunk of light"; and at first, he thought it might be Comet Bradfield. Marking the position on his charts, however, he kept thinking that the coordinates were wrong. When he walked back to his house, he checked again and knew that it was not Bradfield; he then phoned in his report. Sky Watcher mentions that Utsunomiya san also discovered comets in 1975 and 1985... so he feels he is destined for a discovery every 10 years.
Masaaki Tanaka just moved to his home in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, in July. For the past several years, while working in Tokyo as an architect, he traveled to Iwaki (about 150 km north of Tokyo) every weekend to observe. 12 year ago, he built an observatory with friends in Iwaki and decided to move there this year because he wanted "to observe every night, not just weekends". For comet hunting, he too uses 15cm Fujinon binoculars; he also has a motorized Celestron 20cm f1.5 Schmidt Camera for photographic work (a great passion). At 04:05 JST, he said he thought he saw something in his binoculars that looked like a globular cluster but then realized one "should not be there". At 04:21, he took pictures with the Celestron to "make sure of coordinates". He was so excited about the possibility of discovery that he quickly developed the film in the observatory's darkroom and dried it [I couldn't tell if this was the film or a print] with the heat of his car. At home, he checked the tail of the comet and called in his discovery. Another interesting thing that Sky Watcher mentions about Tanaka san is that he opened a new restaurant in Iwaki City that he named "Houki Boshi". If any of you remember my posting on Subaru, you may recognize this as a word used in Japan for meteor (brush star) and in some places for the Pleiades (Brush Daub). I found out comets are also often (perhaps even more deservedly) called Houki Boshi... so maybe citizens of Iwaki City can eat at Tanaka's "Meteor" Restaurant or (probably more accurately) Tanaka's "Comet" Restaurant.