Telescopes on Mauna Kea
This is Hawaii?
The telescopes on
Mauna Kea are world renown research facilities with a no equal on the
planet.
On Saturdays and Sundays they offer free guided tours by university
staff
- all you have to do is get there! Driving from Kona, we headed
up
and inland, out of the palm trees and tropical weather that
characterize
Hawaii and into lush farm fields and cattle herds. We turned onto
Saddle
road (no, the rental vehicle wasn't allowed on the road) and headed
inland.
We arrived at the base station before 1pm, had lunch and toured the
store.
At 1pm, we were introduced to the guide and watched an hour long video
about
the mountain and the history of the telescopes - all the while our
bodies
were getting used to the high elevation. At 2pm we got back in
our
truck and started the long haul up the mountain.
The landscape changes perceptibly as we rose higher - plant life got
sparser
and the geology started to resemble the moon. Just when the
landscape
can't get any weirder, domes start popping up like mushrooms. We
drove
up to the highest part of the road and parked. Our tour guide
gave
us some background information on the area and Hawaii 48 inch telescope
we
were about to tour.
From the Summit, there were a interesting views. Beyond the
sea of
clouds we were standing on top of, we could see a radio telescope
off
one direction, and a series of cinder cones further down the mountain.
At the top of the mountain is an Alter (called lele ho'okau).
The
alter and everything on it is brought up from further down the valley.
Pictures taken, we walked back to the telescopes.
We still had some time before sunset so we went for a walk around
the Keck
Telescopes. At first I thought of photographing from around the
Keck
Telescopes looking back toward the Hawaii - France - Canada
telescope.
As the sun set, I noticed all the tour vans parking at on the ridge
behind
us so we decided to move to the same location.
This part made me happy. We waited for about an hour until the
sun
started to set and then I started taking pictures. It was getting
cold
and windy, but sunset was spectacular and I was glad I was up
there.
There are tour companies in Hilo that offer a van tour to see this for
about
$80 US a person or $145 for a trip with a warm jacket and hot
chocolate.
They asked that we leave the summit at most 15 minuets after sunset
(something
about car lights shining in telescopes). We drove down to the
visitor
center and they had several large amateur telescopes out and fairly
sizable
(30 people) crowd patiently queuing to see through the eye piece.
There
was an amazing view of the moon, a telescope on Saturn and another on
Jupiter.
An hour later, heads full of stars, we drove home.
Mauna Kea Telescopes | Hawaii Volcanoes | City of Refuge| Resort | Snorkeling
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Tags: telescope(10), Hawaii(8), summit(5), road(2), sunset(2), place of worship(2)
People: Michael(3), John(1), Mark(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Trips out of the Country > The Big Island of Hawaii > Telescopes on Mauna Kea
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > Maui > The Big Island of Hawaii > Telescopes on Mauna Kea
From: John Harvey Photo > Trips out of the Country > Maui > The Big Island of Hawaii > Telescopes on Mauna Kea
Very interesting photos and comment. Thanks to the person who compiled this....John Harvey?
Aloha,
Hildi Vieira
Hildi Vieira
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 10:42:05
hay that was a good and cool pictures of mauna kea. but what was the name of the telescope on mauna kea
thanks
jordan
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 14:23:00
aloha,
I am doing a project for the telescope on the top of Mauna Kea, would like to know if I can get some information about these things please email me back.
What is a primary mirror?
what is a secondary mirror?
difference between aluminum and silver coated mirrors
why not lenses?
Wavelength telescope?
Mounting types, equatorial mount--explain, and list which telesopes
Please let me know, I would really appreciated if you could get back at me.
Thank you,
Lana
Lagafuaina Matai
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 23:51:38
Lagafuaina: You should read the wikipedia article about
optical telescopes - it answers most of your questions.
They don't mention silver vs aluminum. Silver tarnishes to a black, non-reflective state when exposed to air. If you silver the back of the mirror, you don't get tarnish on the side attached to the glass, but the light has to travel though the glass, hit the silver, back through the glass and then on to the detector. All those transitions causes distortion, and you have to polish (very precisely) both sides of the mirror. Aluminum doesn't tarnish the same way as silver so you can apply it to the front of the mirror and the light doesn't have to make a trip through the mirror.
Thank you very much for getting back at me. I have done what you say to do, I didn't know it was all there (wikipedia) the funny thing is my teacher banned the wikipedia. Thank you again. Mahalo
Lagafuaina Matai
Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 14:40:31
Last Modified Saturday, January 21st, 2023 at 23:40:25 Edit
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