Behind the Scenes at the Keck Observatory

View from a helicopter of the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Image: Nancy Atkinson

For about 300 nights out of the year, Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii is one of the best places in the world for ground-based astronomy. At an elevation of 4,205 meters (13,796 ft), the summit sits above a large portion of the Earth?s atmosphere, and usually, the sky is clear, calm and dry. Indeed, 13 giant telescopes sit Mauna Kea?s summit, and they have made some of the biggest discoveries in astronomy. But for the remaining nights of the year, a variety of weather-related issues can keep astronomers from observing, and visitors from climbing to the summit to see those pristine skies for themselves, as well as being able to watch some of our biggest eyes on the skies action. Sometimes clouds, high winds or humidity might keep the telescope domes closed, other times snow can close the roads. On a recent visit to Hawaii, heavy snow kept the roads closed for three days and my long-planned trip to the top of Mauna Kea was, disappointingly, scrubbed. But I did get a great behind the scenes tour of the W. M. Keck Observatory headquarters in Waimea.
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