Hawaii: Mauna Kea

The island of Hawaii is made up of four main peaks, two of which are over 13,000ft. Mauna Loa is the most massive and takes up the entire southern half of the island. Mauna Kea is just north of it and only 119 feet shorter, reaching a height of 13,796 ft. The summit area is reachable by dirt road and is strewn with world class observatories. Although the public is not generally allowed inside the observatories, anyone with an able vehicle is allowed to drive up to the end of the road and walk around freely.

 As you drive up from the visitor center at 9,200 feet you eventually leave behind all traces of life and enter what seems like a range of mountains on top of the mountain.

Massive Mauna Loa, slightly higher than Mauna Kea, looms in the distance like a two dimensional apparition. Simply replace the blue sky with a red one, and you have Mars.

Going from sea level (or below sea level if you've been swimming) to nearly 14,000 feet in two hours is a bit tough on your body. It's highly advisable to stop at the visitor center located at 9,000 feet and spend at least 45 minutes there to help acclimatize to the altitude. We did just that, and even although i've been higher, i had the worst altitude sickness i've ever experienced while i was on the summit.

A pair of hikers head towards the summit silhouetted against the massive shadow of Mauna Kea, stretching all the way to the horizon.

There was a bit of a crowd for the sunset viewing. I was surprised to find that most of the people who were up there appeared to be on a Japanese tour group, i assume to see the Subaru Telescope. There are a dozen other observatories on the mountain, most of them right up next to the summit.

Shortly after sunset nearly everyone left, but I wanted to stay up there to see the stars. After all, that was the whole point of all these scopes being built. It was worth the wait. Looking around for a better view i came across two people blasting some kind of rave music out into the upper atmosphere. They worked at one of the telescopes, and their specific job for the moment was to look out for aircraft flying anywhere nearby while the telescopes fired off high intensity lasers to calibrate the sensors for atmospheric distortion. One of them, oddly enough, was from Eagle River, Alaska. They said they didn't mind if i drove around to the different facilities as long as went very slow, as to not kick up any dust, and as long as i used only my parking lights to see where i was going. And they suggested i try to keep the cabin light off whenever i opened the door. The telescopes are so sensitive that any of that can affect the work of the astronomers.

The Keck 1 and 2 telescopes on the left, with the Subaru Telescope in the foreground.

These lasers were very cool and shot off into infinity. They are used to measure distortion in the atmosphere before calibrating the scopes.

This was a 13 minute exposure. This was my first try as sky photography and I realized after this i needed probably an hour long exposure, but Maree had had enough of freezing in the car reading. The funny thing was i had no idea i was looking at the North Star. Everything except the ground is moving in this picture (relative to the camera).

I want this to be my house. 

Above is the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Submillimeter Astronomy requires extraordinarily dry conditions and Mauna Kea is one of 4 locations in the world currently suitable for studying the birth and decay of stars. Even so, the observatory has been recently decommissioned and is scheduled to be dismantled in 2016. It has become redundant since the completion of the massive and insanely impressive Atacama Large Millimeter Array located at 16,000 ft. on the Chajnantor Plateau.