Greetings from Mauna Kea

[Plamadude30k]

I am currently sitting in a very nice dorm room at Hale Pohaku, the base station for astronomers working at Mauna Kea observatories. Since I began today at sea level (at 5 AM local time, something like 17 hours ago) and ended up spending most of it at nearly 14000 feet, I’m a bit loopy, so I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking:

As always, more (and bigger) can be found at my picasa page.

[Farktographer]

oh-so-jealous, mate.

[lokisbong]

Nice. I’m a bit jealous also. Although at 14000 ft there and 6030 here it would appear our weather is about the same.

[orionid]

Been there, almost done that.

/Still wanna go back. Also jealous. Take every advantage of it. Operators at Keck walk away? Duct tape your camera in and set for bulb.

[chupathingie]

Yup, jealousy +1. Don’t miss a single opportunity while you’re there.

If the altitude gets to you, I’ll trade! LOL I’ve spent days at ~12KFt before without issue… can’t imagine 14KFt being too much different. Just remember, when the hallucinations start you have one of the best views on the planet…. 😉

[Plamadude30k]

The altitude’s not really a huge problem for me-I grew up living at ~6000 feet, and I’ve been higher than 14000′ several times. Still, driving straight from sea-level to 14k doesn’t do wonders for your head. One of my roommates basically passed out and had to get on oxygen. I think the highest she had been before we got to Mauna Kea was about 4000 feet.

Anyway, I’ve got some more photos from yesterday, including some stuff from Maula Loa observatories:

[Yoyo]

I love being on the Big Island and looking out toward the ocean and seeing the cloud layer at a lower altitude. The sunsets from Pohakuloa were amazing. I’ve got a great silhouette of a deuce-and-a-half with the clouds and sunset and ocean behind it from when I was there for training in ’98.

[Plamadude30k]

I just noticed I said Maula Loa instead of Mauna Loa. Shows you just how tired I was after that trip. They pretty much kept us going for the entire 40 hours we were there.

[orionid]

And then there’s Mauna Kea’s shadow. As cast on the sky.

Jumbo-size Shadow. by Orionid, on Flickr

[fluffybunny]

And then there’s Mauna Kea’s shadow. As cast on the sky.

Jumbo-size Shadow. by Orionid, on Flickr

Just when I thought I’d seen it all. Impressive.

/Must have been akin to the experience an astronauts have as they view Mother Earth.

[Author]

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