We are very sad to imform you that Dr. Masatsugu Minami passed away 11:00 am 28 January in Japanese time due to interstitial pnumonia. He was 80 years old.
 He was an amateur astronomer in his highschool age and made drawings of famous great dust storm in 1956. He became a physicist majoring particle physics after graduating university and continued Mars observation.
 In 1986 he began to publish Comunications in Mars Observations (CMO) and played a great role to Mars observers in the world, although CMO was changed its style from paper to web.
  We pray that his soul may rest in peace.

 B. A Biographical Note on Masatsugu MINAMI by William SHEEHAN

  On this 28 January 2019 ,we have lost an irreplaceable great star, Masatsugu MINAMI who, some thirty two years ago, had created an unprecedented and probably the last singular field "Communications in Mars Observations" as an antithesis of the previous defective observing/analysing systems of Mars, in which the dream of well-planned program of classical Mars observation finally came true, to which visual/digital observers across the world could have been submitting their records to find their raisons d'être promptly. It was astonishing that the integrity of this Martians' Shangri-Laish zone had been preserved practically solely by Masatsugu, an unprecedented and presumably the final PURE MARTIAN/visual sketcher on this blue planet.
  We are pleased to present here a sharp-eyed and warm-hearted biographical note by Dr. William SHEEHAN who had long been very understanding and a good friend of our Dr. Masatsugu MINAMI.

 C. Mars is Now in Virgo at Dawn

  The Planet Mars is back in the eastern sky. The apparent diameter is only δ=3.7" and the season is λ=103°Ls now. Mars will next be at opposition on 13 October 2020 at 23h GMT. Its largest angular diameter will be 22.56 arcsecs on 6 October 2020 at 14h GMT.