Hawaii Astronomy

University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope (UH-2.2) is located on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. This is the first large telescope that was constructed on Mauna Kea. Operational by 1970, it showed success thought the image quality and the observing conditions on Mauna Kea. Before the operation began, an extensive survey on Mauna Kea was conducted by the University of Hawaii. The report suggested to the world how good Mauna Kea was for astronomy. Its location has a smoothed shaped mountain, which means that the airflow will pass smoothly by the mountain. The 2.2 meter telescope has had some major discoveries and one of them was the discovery of the Kuiper Belt, at which Pluto was then considered as the largest Kuiper Belt object, not as a planet anymore. Some of the feature that the UH-2.2 telescope are the first efficient 256×256 infrared array camera in the world, the first efficient 1024×1024 infrared array camera in the world, the first 4096×4096 infrared array camera in the world, and the first 8192×8192 CCD camera in the world.