Kenji Toba (1950– ) is a staff member at the Ibaraki Prefectural Office and amateur astronomer in Japan. He started his visual search for comets in 1968, and after sweeping for 123 hours he found C/1971 E1. He has served as the director of the BiStar Observatory since its foundation. (M 46112) _ _.
Discovered on 27-10-1997 in Kuma Kogen by Nakamura, A.