Born Tottori Prefecture, Japan, February 1913
Died Kurasashiki, Japan, 26 August 1990
Japanese amateur astronomer Minoru Honda discovered more than a dozen comets, in turn mentoring a younger generation of remarkably successful Japanese comet hunters. After attending a primary school and its 2-year extension course, Honda started to work with his parents as a farmer. However, already in his school days he had been interested in astronomy, and he made his first telescope in 1927 using a purchased 28-mm lens. When Honda was 17 years old, he read the book on comets by Shigeru Kanda and knew that no comet had yet been discovered in Japan. Immediately Honda decided to discover one and started to make observations without any stellar chart.
In 1937 Honda was hired by Issei Yamamoto, the founder of the Oriental Astronomical Society, to work at the Zodiacal Light Observatory in Seto Hiroshima. There Honda discovered, in October 1940, comet C/1940 S1 (Okabayasi-Honda), which was detected by S....
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Selected Reference
Bortle, J. E. (1991). “Minoru Honda.” Sky & Telescope 81, no. 6: 670.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Kozai, Y. (2014). Honda, Minoru. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_644
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_644
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9916-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9917-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Chemistry, Materials and Physics