Sako's Laboratory

RESEARCH SCOPE

Research Interests

Faint meteors, small bodies in the solar system, star and planet formation, supernovae, high-energy explosive phenomena, gravitational wave counterparts.

Instrumentation

Development of optical and infrared wide-field cameras, spectrometers, and polarimeters. Remote and autonomous observation system for ground-based telescopes.

Detectors

Development of data acquisition system for large-format optical and infrared sensors. Evaluation of CMOS and SPAD high-speed video sensors.

Advanced optics

Development of functional optical elements. Metal mesh wavelength-selective filter for infrared. Moth-eye antireflective coating for infrared. Sub-wavelength structure elements.

Informatics with big data

Optical wide-field video survey. Machine learning. Optimization. Large-scale database. Real time data analysis system.

Social utilization and education

Utilization of big data of space debris, artificial satellites, and wide-field images obtained by the sky video-survey. Actions towards SDGs with nature big data.

MEMBERS

Shigeyuki Sako (Associate Professor) private web-site

Satoshi Takita (Project Assistant Professor)

Koshi Ryotaro (D3)

Taiga Sasaoka (D1)

Sorato Wada (D1)

Keito Kurashima (M2)

Emon Kodama (M2)

Shodai Nezu (M2)

Haruka Nagasawa (M1)

Natsu Madokoro (M1)

Yosuke Takamura (B4)

ALUMNUS

Ryogo Oki (graduated in 2025)

Jin Beniyama (transferred to Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in 2025)

Noriaki Arima (transferred to Nihon-U in 2024)

Risa Tsutsuki (graduated in 2024)

Ryuichi Hoshino (graduated in 2024)

Ryou Ohsawa (transferred to NAOJ in 2022)

Yohei Nishino (graduated in 2021)

RELATED PROJECTS

TAO 6.5-m Telescope

The University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory (TAO) project is to construct an infrared-optimized 6.5m telescope at the summit of Chajnantor (5640-m altitude) in northern Chile. The first light observation is scheduled in 2024.

Kiso Schmidt Telescope

The 105-cm Schmidt telescope is the main telescope of the Kiso Observatory, Institute of Astronomy, UTokyo in Nagano, Japan. This telescope has a wide field-of-view of 9-degrees and is controlled by a remote/automatic observation system.

MIMIZUKU

MIMIZUKU is a mid-infrared instrument for the TAO 6.5-m telescope covering a wide wavelength range from 2 to 38 microns. Field Stacker unit on MIMIZUKU realizes accurate calibration of variable atmospheric transmittance. Development of a new optical instrument for the TAO 6.5-m telescope has begun since 2023.

Tomo-e Gozen

Tomo-e Gozen is an optical wide-field video observation system with a mosaic CMOS camera on the Kiso Schmidt telescope and intelligent observation software. It is capable to take consecutive images of 20 square degrees at 2-fps by 84 CMOS sensors.

PUBLICATIONS

Refereed Papers Non-refereed Papers

powered by NASA/ADS

MULTIMEDIA

1. Group photo

At the dome of Institute of Astronomy, March 2024.

2. Celebration of completion of the Tomo-e Gozen camera

You can enjoy by playing it together with the following video.

3. Tomo-e Gozen camera on the Kiso Schmidt telescope

4. YouTube channel

You can find other video contents related to Tomo-e Gozen on YouTube.

ACCESS

Buildings of Institute of Astronomy are located adjacent to the Mitaka campus of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).
Access ways to the Mitaka campus by public transportation are described here.

2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-0015, Japan

Room-2008 on the 2nd floor in the main building or rooms in the experimental building.

CONTACT US

Institute of Astronomy, School of Science, The University of Tokyo