Maunakea Observatories — observatory
Image by doctor-a from Pixabay

Maunakea Observatories

  • Elevation4,205 m
  • 2 min read
  • 19.822° N 155.475° W

Interesting facts

  • A Land Office map of 1901 already marked a Hawaii Astronomy Station on the mountain, decades before the first telescope arrived.
  • Before Mauna Kea was chosen, Haleakalā on Maui was tested and judged too low and too often covered in cloud.
  • Observations of distant supernovae with telescopes here fed the research honoured by the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for the accelerating expansion of the universe.
  • Canada and France agreed in 1973 to build the 3.6-metre telescope that they operate jointly with the University of Hawaiʻi.
  • The Canada–France Ecliptic Plane Survey, run from the summit, found distant bodies beyond Neptune such as 2003 QX113.
  • The tilt sensors of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope recorded the 2006 Kiholo Bay earthquake, which caused minor damage across the summit.
  • Together the observatories represent an investment of more than 2 billion dollars in science and technology.
  • In 1998 some 2,033 acres of the science reserve were transferred to the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Area Reserve.
  • Astronomers are supported from the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy at Hale Pōhaku, about 2,800 metres up the mountain.
  • Opposition to new building has also cited the palila, an endemic finch-billed Hawaiian honeycreeper living on the mountain's slopes.

Why it is worth it

Near the summit of Mauna Kea, at about 4,200 metres, a cluster of white and silver domes stands on red-brown cinder cones high above the cloud layer. This is one of the world's great observatory sites: twelve facilities housing thirteen telescopes, including the twin 10-metre mirrors of the W. M. Keck Observatory, Japan's 8.2-metre Subaru Telescope, Gemini North, the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope and the 15-metre James Clerk Maxwell Telescope for submillimetre astronomy, along with the linked dishes of the Submillimeter Array.

The reason they are all here is the air. The summit sits above most of the atmosphere's water vapour, the skies are dark and the air is steady, dry and clean, with little cloud overhead — conditions that make it outstanding for both optical and infrared work. The planetary astronomer Gerard Kuiper began testing the site in the 1960s; construction started in 1967, the University of Hawaiʻi's 2.2-metre telescope saw first light in 1970, and the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope followed in the 1970s. The telescopes occupy an astronomy precinct of about 212 hectares within the much larger Mauna Kea Science Reserve, managed by the University of Hawaiʻi.

Mauna Kea is also, for Native Hawaiians, a sacred mountain, and the summit area is protected for its cultural significance. The long dispute over the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope, which drew large protests on the access road in 2019, made the mountain a symbol far beyond astronomy, and it is worth arriving with that in mind: the summit is a place of prayer as well as research.

For most people the experience is the landscape itself — a volcanic desert of cinder and scree, the domes opening to the sky at dusk, the cloud layer spread out below — and the stargazing lower down. The Onizuka Center for International Astronomy visitor station at Hale Pōhaku, around 2,800 metres, is the place to stop and acclimatise before going higher.

Getting there

The summit lies about 40 km in a straight line from Hilo, the island's east-coast town. The closest airport by distance is the small Waimea-Kohala Airport (MUE), about 28 km away, but most visitors fly into Hilo International Airport (ITO) or Kona International Airport (KOA); either is roughly an hour and a half by road to the summit turn-off. The route follows the Daniel K. Inouye Highway (Saddle Road) to the Maunakea Access Road at milepost 28, which climbs to the visitor station. Above it the road is partly unpaved, and only four-wheel-drive vehicles are allowed beyond the station. There are no services on Saddle Road — leave with a full tank.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Hawaii 10The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Greatest Modern Engineering Wonders in the United States 7The Most Remarkable Observatories 8The Greatest Engineering Wonders in the United States 26The Greatest Modern Engineering Wonders 26The Greatest Engineering Wonders 271

From the encyclopaedia

The Maunakea Observatories are a group of independent astronomical research facilities and large telescope observatories that are located at the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaiʻi, United States. The facilities are located in a 525-acre (212 ha) special land use zone known as the "Astronomy Precinct", which is located within the 11,228-acre (4,544 ha) Mauna Kea Science Reserve. The Astronomy Precinct was established in 1967 and is located on land protected by the Historical Preservation Act for its significance to Hawaiian culture. The presence and continued construction of telescopes is highly controversial due to Mauna Kea's centrality in native Hawaiian religion and culture, as well as for a variety of environmental reasons.

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19.82222, -155.47494per Wikidata