Upcountry (really, really up)!

Monday we went whale watching and had a really nice time. We saw several whales and then our boat stopped in the middle of a large pod of dolphins before we went back in to the harbor. Lots of fun.




In the afternoon we did something new (for us). We went up to the observatories on Mauna Kea to catch the sunset and then do some stargazing. When you get up to 13,600’, away from any lights, clouds, pollution and heat, you have the perfect conditions for stargazing. We actually came back down to about 9000’ for the stargazing (and the oxygen- you can feel a little tipsy while you are up at the top). Wow, there were so many stars! Some parts of the sky were hazy or fuzzy because there were so many stars. We could actually see a swath of the Milky Way across the sky above us. We are far enough south to see some of the southern stars, too. Pretty cool! And freezing cold!

Us overlooking the slopes of Mauna Loa. Clouds cover quite a bit of the coast and inland portion of the island. Hilo is somewhere behind us.


Alien terrain between the upper slopes of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.


As the sun drops lower in the sky the shadow of Mauna Kea stretches out over 100 miles across the ocean.


Going...


Going...


Gone.


Some of the observatories; the Subaru telescope on the left, the Keck twins in the center and the NASA infrared telescope on the right; Rising up through the clouds above the observatories you can see Haleakala, on the island of Maui. You can see the top of Kohala, the northernmost volcanic peak on the big island poking up between the observatories and Haleakala.