Name Yoshiaki Oshima | Role Astronomer | |
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Discovered (9940) 1988 VM3, 5730 Yonosuke, 4157 Izu | ||
Yoshiaki Oshima (大島 良明, Ōshima Yoshiaki) (born 1952) is a Japanese astronomer and prolific discoverer of 61 asteroids as credited by the Minor Planet Center.
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The outer main-belt asteroid 5592 Oshima is named after him.
International asteroid monitoring project
Japan Spaceguard Association (JSGA) is keen to have astronomical education for young people and held Spaceguard Private Investigator of the Stars—the fugitives are asteroids! program in 2001. Yoshiaki Oshima participated as one of the committee member. JSGA submitted a paper on that project in a proceedings, with Oshima as a contributor.
JSGA held an astronomical education program as part of their International Asteroid Monitoring Project, that collaborated with the British Council and its International Schools' Observatory (ISO) program which had involved 12 teams of junior high to senior high school classes from Asian and European countries.
The Private Investigator of Stars was co-sponsored by the British Council which advised the International Asteroid Monitoring Project by coordinating observatory in the Canary islands and participating laboratories for ISO. Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper held an asteroid hunting contest for the JSGA and run articles on their pages. 438 school classes and other teams signed up with 1,317 indibivisuals, and 133 teams reported the results of their observation.
JSGA based its project headquarters in its observatory called Bisei Spaceguard Center, owned by the Japan Space Forum. An optical telescope on the Canary island has been operated by the staff of Astrophysics Research Institute at John Moore University in Liverpool, and images were transmitted to each classroom via internet connection.