In Hawaii Tribune-Herald (external news source determines link expiration).

March 8, 2008

By Terrie Henderson
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer

By fall, undergraduate astronomy students in Hilo will get a better view of the sky.

That’s because there are plans to replace the existing telescope used by students on Mauna Kea with a bigger telescope that will facilitate learning and research.

Currently, there is a 24-inch telescope, also known as a .6 meter telescope, that students use for research and learning purposes. But that telescope, which was the first telescope placed on Mauna Kea and has been on the summit since 1968, is not used much any more because it is small and has fallen into disrepair, said University of Hawaii at Hilo astronomy professor William Heacox.

“A lot of students have used it, (but) in the last five years it has been used very seldom,” Heacox said of the university’s existing telescope. “It is still used occasionally for research.”

It will take two weeks to disassemble the telescope, he said, adding in April a large crane will move the telescope from its perch near the top of the mountain and place it on a sea-level-bound flatbed truck.

“The instrument is no longer useful as a telescope,” he said, adding it will be placed in storage until another use can be determined. “We are hoping to find somewhere to display it.”

In July the new telescope will be brought up the mountain in the same fashion, he said.

The new observatory will be named, “Hoku Ke‘a,” the Hawaiian navigational name for the “Southern Cross.”

Heacox led the telescope project as principal investigator on the grant with the assistance of astronomy professor Richard Crowe, who served as co-principal investigator.

The new telescope is being paid for by a $650,000 Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation. Although the school received the grant in 2002, astronomers have worked hard to ensure the project was done correctly before placing the new telescope, Heacox said.

It took two years to get the land use permits, Heacox said.

Those in charge of the project also wanted to make sure the community was informed, given the cultural importance of the summit to all who live on the Big Island, Heacox said.

“We didn’t have any contentious meetings with anybody yelling at us,” Heacox said, adding most are in support of the telescope because it is primarily going to be an educational tool for students. He said the university also had an environmental assessment done, which was an added step they took to make sure the project would not have any negative impact on the mountain.

“We wanted to demonstrate to the community that we were doing this right,” Heacox said.

The university is putting $650,000 toward the telescope in addition to the grant, Heacox said, which will be mainly used for renovating the building which houses the telescope.

“We need to have a dome structure up there that we can control from UH-Hilo,” Heacox said. “We will be operating it remotely.”

By controlling the telescope from the campus, high school students who normally could not visit the top of the mountain will also be able to use the telescope for learning purposes, Heacox said.

“It is going to be a mix of education and research,” Heacox said. There will also be programs implemented to get youth involved in the study of astronomy.

Right now, the new telescope is being built on the mainland by the Colorado-based company, Equinox Interscience. The telescope should be up and running by early September — just in time for the fall semester.

“This will give our students direct hands-on opportunities,” Heacox said. “It will principally give us the opportunity to get lots of research done. It’s almost unprecedented in astronomy to have a telescope this good at a site this good for students to use.”

Heacox said the site was given to UHH by the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, and thanked the institute for their support during the process.

Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, director of the Institute for Astronomy, said although graduate students from the institute will likely use the telescope, “a lot of the use of the telescope will be for undergraduate students.”

He commended UHH for their efforts to make the telescope a reality.

“I think the University of Hawaii at Hilo undergraduate program is really a very successful program,” Kudritzki said. “It’s a really important contribution to the University of Hawaii at Hilo undergraduate program in Astronomy. For their program, it is a major milestone.”

Both Kudritzki and Heacox agree the students will be the major benefactors in this endeavor.

And Merrell Tucker, an undergraduate senior majoring in astronomy, is well aware of opportunities this new telescope will bring.

Tucker, who is president of the astrophysics club, is excited about the new things he will see and do once the telescope is in place.

“I will be here when this is up and running,” Tucker said. “I came to this school over schools in California because of the telescope they already had. The hands-on experience, I think, is priceless. It’s like an internship when you are going to school. I think it will be a great experience. Having something like that on our resume is really going to be priceless.”

Tucker said there are going to be many opportunities for students to be involved with the telescope.

“It is really a great asset to the school. It’s the university’s scope,” he said. “You can look farther and farther away, in the past. The quality of the images that we get will be sharper and more precise.”