Visiting Mauna Kea

Hi All,

Last week we vacationed in Hawaii and met some friends for observing at the 9000 ft level of Mauna Kea, somewhat below the 14,700 ft summit where all the large observatories are located. The Visitor Center is located at this level, and every night hundreds of people converge on the parking lot outside the Vis to look thru a bunch of telescopes that the staff sets up.

This first image shows two SCTs on equatorial mounts getting set up for the tourist onslaught that happens every night, 365 days of the year. In the background is the most massive mountain on Earth - Mauna Loa - rising above the marine layer (the peak is unfortunately hidden behind a nearby hill).

Rolando

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As twilight fades, visitors line up behind the scopes to look thru the eyepiece of this C14 brought to the site by Chris Erickson, who sets up his scope pretty much every Tuesday and helps people to look thru the eyepiece and explains what they are seeing. This night it was Jupiter and then the Moon.

People are delighted to see the Moon, even when full, and all you hear are gasps and WOWs as they see it for the first time at 80x. Chris even shows them how to take I-phone pictures of what they have seen. Chris is the one facing away from the scope, holding a quite bright red light so that people don't run into the tripod.

I was at another C14 and showed people the open clusters in Auriga. Celestron donated the tube assemblies for two C14s and one C11. The mounts came from AP. 900, 110 and 1200 equatorials on Losmandy tripod-piers.

Rolando

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