Hawaii 2026 - Stars at the Summit

Today's tour wasn't until 3 pm and we had some errands to run.  We took a break from Hawaiian cuisine and ate our cheapest vacation meal of the trip at Costco!  Even here where everything is crazy-expensive, the beef hotdog and soda combo costs $1.50.

Oh, I forgot.  My pre-trip at-home manicure was looking absolutely dreadful this morning so I made a 9 am appointment at a nail salon.  My only regret is that it took almost two hours, but the very nice nail tech did a very nice job.

Anyway, in the afternoon we put on warm layers and donned our long pants and hiking shoes and then parked at the nearby Courtyard Marriott so that we could be picked up by our tour driver and guide for the evening.  We were going to the top of Mauna Kea!

The dormant shield volcano is the site of dozens of observatories for various purposes related to space science.  The nearly 14,000-foot elevation is above most clouds and the atmosphere is thinner - which is a good combination for astronomy.

Our driver's narration of Hawaii fun facts and corny jokes made for a relaxing trip up the mountain.  We stopped at the visitor center at about 9,000 feet for a bathroom break and dinner, which was served in old-school Stanley thermoses.  We made a few other stops on the way up so that we could gradually experience the elevation gain.  By the time we were at the summit I could really feel it if I moved around too much.  I was grateful that our driver had explained all of the ways we might feel "weird" in the thin atmosphere - because I definitely had heavy legs.

The sunset was spectacular.

As it grew dark we loaded back onto the bus and descended back to a more comfortable elevation on the mountain and our driver set up a telescope for some guided star gazing.  At this point I set up a camera and tripod to take some pictures.  Tonight was the full moon, so there was almost no chance of photographing faint deep sky objects like nebulae but the unique landscape was fully illuminated like daytime in long-exposure photos.

We were dropped off in town by about 11 pm and I was very tired by the time we went to bed. 

The true summit of Mauna Kea and the rising full moon

In the distance you can see the top of Red Hill on Maui, about 80 miles away

We could see the top of Mauna Loa, about 25 miles away

This satellite dish for radio astronomy is the exact same type as what they used for filming the movie Contact and it is part of the Very Long Baseline Array project.  The array's signal can be amplified five-fold if they enlist the help of the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia