The Idea of “Continuous Observations by Global Cooperation Network”

Sunday, February 14, 2016
Nobuaki Kawai, Department of Human Sciences and Arts, Jissen Women's University, Tokyo, Japan
What is open science? In recent years, the open science is often argued as a scientific new method(Nielsen.M, 2012). The open science evaluates the collective intellect and new amateurism in particular (Surowiecki,2004) . 

This research focuses on whether an amateur astronomer held what kind of spatial image and formed a collective at the time when electric communication developed in the 1920s(Taisho period). The role of amateur magazines has historically been influential in Japanese amateur astronomy. In particular, the journal Tenkai (Heavens:天界), published by the Oriental Astronomical Association (OAA), is one such magazine. Since its establishment in 1920, more than 1000 issues have been published. Tenkai (Heavens) was originally produced by an organization known as “Tenmon Doukoukai (Astronomy Club),” which was founded by Issei Yamamoto and based at the Kyoto University Astronomical Observatory. Above all, these normative ideas are the idea of "Continuous Observations by Global Cooperation Network" in the foundation of a periodical period. This concept is declared as “Prospectus of the Society of Astronomical Friend” in the first issue. The declaration is that an amateur astronomy participates in networking and is that constant observation and communication are enabled on the whole earth in the night and day. This can be called the earth recognition to consider the earth to be the observation equipment of the globe like compound eyes. This shows the way of the open intellect and communication for the astronomy. These cooperative acts are constructed by three concepts. They are "world", "cooperation" and "observation”. This study implicates  some suggestion about the scientific openness and an amateur role in the science.