Hawaii Astronomy

The Haleakala High Altitude Observatory Site, in the Island of Maui is Hawaii’s first astronomical research. The observatory site is situated 10,000 feet above sea level, where the seeing conditions on the area are just as good as on the Mauna Kea, which was said to be the best in the world.

1. The Solar C Observatory

The Solar C Observatory is a 0.5m off-axis Gregorian system coronagraphic reflecting telescope which is located on Haleakala adjacent to the Mees Solar Observatory with a .45 meter diameter primary mirror. The telescope housed within the Observatory is designed to allow coronal observations which have not been realized, even from space, develop technology which we believe will be used for future satellite observations, support several long-term coronal observing platforms which extend intermittent coronal space observations, and provide a model environment for the future ATST project

2. Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring (MAGNUM) Telescope:

Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring started on 1995. The telescope was designed to monitor the distance of the active galaxies through the Multi colors variances that the galaxies emitted. This telescope was constructed on the North Dome of the University of Hawaii’s LURE facility, on top of the Haleakala. The operations started on September, 2000. The MAGNUM project will: explore the new method of distance detection, detect distances to AGNs and quasars (QSOs) at red shifts of 1-2, increase the sample size of monitored galaxies by 2 orders of magnitude enabling statistical determination of properties, use multi-color monitoring observations to learn about the internal structure and origin of AGNs and QSOs, measure the delay time from multiple images of the QSOs, so the Hubble constant can be measured, and discover distant galaxy clusters in deep images of the monitored fields produced by adding the individual monitor images.

3. The Maui Space Surveillance System (MSSS)

The Maui Space Surveillance System (MSSS) is a state-of-the-art electro-optical facility combining operational satellite, the only of its kind in the world. The MSSS houses the 3.67-meter Advanced Electro Optical System (AEOS) and the other telescopes with ranging sizes of 0.4 to 1.6 meters.

4. The Faulkes Telescope

The Faulkes Telescope Project is the education arm of Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGTN). This telescope is housed within a dome shaped structures where a shutter is required to be opened to expose the lens to the open sky. This telescope is a quick response telescope where this is used for rapid response when needed. This telescope can move at two degrees per second. This telescope has two modes, the real time and the offline mode; the offline mode is where an observer will input the coordinates to select the target and then filters the selection. While in the offline mode, the coordinates will be uploaded to the system for targeting, then there will be a flexible schedule made.