Subaru Telescope visit

The Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii at sunset
The Subaru Telescope at sunset.

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Going Back….’ See more responses here.

I was thinking about posting photos going back to my first visit to Hawaii, but in looking at them, I realized that I’d never posted photos from my tour of the Subaru Telescope, which I took a few months after moving here. At the time, the Subaru Telescope was the only one on the summit of Mauna Kea that offered tours to the general public, though the tours have been shut down by the current Covid situation.

I particularly remember the fabulous views from the walkway around the exterior of the telescope. The interior of the telescope was also interesting, though in the abstract way of a giant piece of equipment. This is not a telescope where one gets to put an eye to the lens to see what’s going on, though I was charmed to learn that when Princess Sayako of Japan dedicated the telescope in 1999, she was able to do just that because a special eyepiece had been constructed for that purpose!

The Subaru Telescope is a Ritchey-Chretien reflecting telescope. It has a large field of view which makes it ideal for wide-field sky surveys. For more information about the Subaru Telescope, visit https://subarutelescope.org/en/. The telescope’s live camera stream captured a cool video of last month’s Perseid Meteor Shower which can be seen here.

  • A view of Mauna Loa from the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii
    View from the Subaru Telescope toward Mauna Loa with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on the left.
  • A view of the Smithsonian Submillimeter array from the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii
    The Smithsonian Submilimeter Array seen from the Subaru Telescope.
  • The walkway around the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii
    The walkway around the Subaru Telescope.
  • The mirror cleaning area of the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii
    The area where the telescope mirror is cleaned.
  • The interior of the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii
    The base of the Subaru Telescope itself.

12 thoughts on “Subaru Telescope visit”

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