Mississauga Astronomical Society

Fortysecond Meeting

Speaker’s Night

Day:                Friday, June 10, 2005

Speaker: Peter Jedicke

Astronomy in Hawaii – research, outreach, observing

Peter Jedicke, of the London Centre, is the current President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. He is a teacher of physics and astronomy at Fanshawe College in London, and a songwriter and singer. His talk was to be given at the RASC General Assembly in Kelowna but was cancelled due to lack of time.

Peter described his personal experiences in Hawaii. He developed and taught an astronomy course at Fanshawe college and asked for a sabatical to a major astronomical location. Thus he spent January and February 2005 in Hawaii. The Institute for Astronomy (IfA) has three sites in the islands. The centre of operations is at The University of Hawaii at Manoa in a suburb of Honolulu. The Manoa site has 80 scientists with 35 phD students.  Serious astronomy is done at the graduate level. The two observing sites are at Kula at 3000 meters on Haleakala mountain on Maui, and IfA Hilo Mauna Kea on the tallest mountain in the world (from base to summit).  Peter pointed out that astronomy is a major enterprise in Hawaii, attracting high tech business in electronics, optics etc., and is the number 3 industry in the state (after tourism and agriculture). Hilo has a greater per capita phD’s in astronomy than any other city.

Haleakala High Altitude Observatory with its advanced electro-optical system has an important political advantage over Mauna Kea. Native people believe that spirits live on mountain tops. As a result there are concerns over putting new telescopes on the big island. Consequently if a system needs to be fast-tracked, it is put on Haleakala as for example the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) at 4 meters which will be the largest solar telescope in the world when built there. Also in the planning stage is the Pan-STARRS Project (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) with four 2 meter scopes to be used to discover all remaining asteroids to 100 meters in size as far as the Kuiper belt (estimated as 10 million). Peter himself designed the new logo for this system. Peter also described the Faulke Telescope a 200 cm instrument run by the Educational Trust in the U.K. During daytime in the U.K, it is night in Hawaii and students remotely use the telescope in real time. The IfA runs the scope in return for some observing time. Peter showed an image of asteroid 5899 Jedicke imaged by this telescope.  

Outreach involves taking astronomy to people who are not committed to astronomy. The project “Journey Through the Universe” in Hilo was co-organized by NASA, Challenger Centre (families of the late astronauts) and Hilo astronomers. The program had displays from the University of Hawaii, Gemini Observatory, Mauna Kea Education Centre and many others. In fact many different astronomical institutions have outreach programs in Hawaii.

Amateur astronomers of the Hawaii Astronomical Society meet at Bishop Museum. Public star nights are held at Kahala park every second week, and club observing nights at Dillingham airfield where the TV series “Lost” is filmed. Although the skies are very clear on the mountain tops, such is often not the case at these low observing sites near sea level.

Peter then described the observatories of Mauna Kea with the saddle road and visitor centre at 2000 meters altitude where night observing is held. At Hale Pohaku, astronomers get acclimatized and have dorms. In summary, Peter said that astronomy is a big thing in Hawaii. 

Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to M.A.S. meeting reports page
Mississauga Astronomical Society