Personal Story

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue49 1–31 March 2024

I was born in a small country town called Sakura City, about 100 km north of Tokyo. Sakura means cherry blossoms in Japanese. With no high mountains or bright buildings around, the stars are beautifully visible. It wasn't so unnatural for me to aspire to study astronomy when I was in 8th grade. (I have kept an interest in astronomy since then, though I tend to easily get bored of others.) 

After graduating from high school, I went to Tohoku University to study astronomy. At the time, the Tohoku region was in the middle of recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, and people were united and focused in one direction. I fell in love with the city and ended up spending about 10 years in Tohoku during my undergraduate, master, and Ph.D course. 

In graduate school, I began research related to adaptive optics for the Subaru Telescope. I developed a measurement technique and an instrument to characterize turbulence at Subaru. It was a tough battle against the restrictive environment in the middle of the covid-19, but right after the covid started to ease off, I stayed in Hawaii for about a year to develop the instruments and conduct observation at Subaru, and managed to write my Ph.D. thesis. 

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at AITC, working on the development of adaptive optics for GMT and Subaru. I am very happy to have an exciting job where I can apply what I have learned through my graduate research. The work environment is more fulfilling than ever with outstanding experts not only in astronomy but also in various other fields, and I will try to learn more knowledge and experience from them. 

Outside of work, I spend most of my recent days off at home watching movies and anime. Badminton, which I started playing when I was in high school, is one of my few hobbies, and I enjoy playing once a week and working up a sweat. However, since now I have come to Australia, my next goal is to start mountain climbing and camping to enjoy the great outdoors. Another future target is to live with a cat. That fluffy liquid is my favourite animal.

- Hajime Ogane -