The Haleakalā Observatory, also known as the Haleakalā High Altitude Observatory Site, is Hawaii's first astronomical research observatory. It is located on the island of

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...

and is owned by the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawai'i, which operates some of the facilities on the site and leases portions to other organizations. Tenants include the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGTN). At over in altitude, the summit of Haleakalā is above one third of the Earths's troposphere and has excellent astronomical seeing conditions.

Facilities

Mees Solar Observatory

The Mees Solar Observatory (MSO) is named after Kenneth Mees and dedicated in 1964. It consists of one dome with multiple instruments sharing a common mount.

Pan-STARRS

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) is a pair of telescopes plus a computing facility that surveys the sky on a continual basis, providing accurate

astrometry Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way. His ...

and

photometry Photometry can refer to: * Photometry (optics), the science of measurement of visible light in terms of its perceived brightness to human vision * Photometry (astronomy), the measurement of the flux or intensity of an astronomical object's electrom ...

of detected objects. By detecting any differences from previous observations of the same areas of the sky, it has discovered over 5,700 new asteroids, comets, variable stars and other celestial objects. Currently, the PS1 telescope is in operation and the PS2 is in its commissioning phase.

Faulkes Telescope North

The

Faulkes Telescope North The Faulkes Telescope North is a clone of the Liverpool Telescope, and is located at Haleakala Observatory in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is a f/10 Ritchey-Chrétien telescope. The telescope is owned and operated by LCOGT. This telescope and ...

, part of the

Faulkes Telescope Project The Faulkes Telescope Project (FTP) is supported by the Dill Faulkes Educational Trust. It provides access to 1,500 hours of observing time on two 2-metre class telescopes located in Hawaii (Faulkes Telescope North in Hawaii) and Australia (Faulkes ...

, is a reflecting telescope owned and operated by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. It provides remote access to a research-quality telescope primarily to students in the United Kingdom.

TLRS-4 Laser Ranging System

The TLRS-4 Laser Ranging System is part of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), which provides satellite laser ranging and lunar laser ranging data. The TLRS-4 replaced an older facility in order to provide continuity of data. The old facility now houses telescopes of the Pan-STARRS project.

Zodiacal Light Observatory

The Zodiacal Light Observatory currently consists of two instruments. The Scatter-free Observatory for Limb Active Regions and Coronae (SOLARC or SOLAR-C) telescope is a off-axis reflecting coronagraph that is used to study the Sun's corona. The Day-Night Seeing Monitor Telescope System (DNSM) makes telescope-independent observations of perturbations in the atmosphere above Haleakala.

Maui Space Surveillance Complex

The

Air Force Office of Scientific Research The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...

(AFOSR) of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) operates the Maui Space Surveillance Complex (MSSC), which is part of the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site (AMOS). Located at the MSSC are the Advanced Electro Optical System Telescope (AEOS), the Maui Space Surveillance System (MSSS), and the

Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) detects, tracks, catalogs and identifies artificial objects orbiting Earth, e.g. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris. The system is the responsibility of Uni ...

(GEODSS). The MSSS uses a number of optical assets, including a telescope, two telescopes on a common mount, a beam director/tracker, and a laser beam director. The GEODSS uses two telescopes and one telescope.

Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) is a

solar telescope A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph ...

of the National Solar Observatory.

Future facilities

* The AFRL has plans to build a mirror re-coating facility adjacent to the AEOS building.

Former facilities

* A Baker-Nunn telescope operated from 1957 to 1976 as part of

Project Space Track Project Space Track was a research and development project of the US Air Force, to create a tracking system for all artificial satellites of the Earth and space probes, domestic and foreign. Project Space Track was started at the Air Force Cambri ...

. * The Lunar Ranging Experiment (LURE) Observatory operated from 1974 until 2004. The Pan-STARRS PS1 now resides in the south dome of the LURE facility and the PS2 is being built in the north dome. * The University of Chicago Enrico Fermi Institute operated the Haleakala Cosmic Ray Neutron Monitor Station from 1991 to 2007. * The Haleakala Gamma Ray Observatory was a six-mirror Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope on an

equatorial mount An equatorial mount is a mount for instruments that compensates for Earth's rotation by having one rotational axis, the polar axis, parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. This type of mount is used for astronomical telescopes and cameras. The ...

. It began operating in 1981 and was upgraded in 1988. * The

Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring or MAGNUM was a project completed in 2008, that used a 2 meter (78.7 inch) telescope at Haleakala, Hawaii. The project started in 1995, and with telescope observations starting in 2000 for the scientific ...

(MAGNUM) was a near infrared telescope operated by the University of Tokyo. It was housed in the LURE facility's north dome from 1998 to 2008. * Observations of airglow were made from a platform near the middle of the site in the 1960s and 1970s. The platform is now used for temporary projects. * The Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program operated from 2000 to 2007 using one of the MSSS 1.2 m telescopes.

Non-astronomical facilities

* The Federal Aviation Administration operates a facility immediately to the west of the observatory site. * The Department of Energy also operates a facility immediately to the west of the observatory site. * A small building on the site is used by the Haleakalā Amateur Astronomers.

Gallery

File:AEOS MSSS GEODSS.jpg, Air Force facilities from the west File:AEOS3 lg.jpg, AEOS telescope

References

External links

University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy - Haleakala Observatory "Maui's Night Sky"
Time elapse photography of night sky from Haleakala by Wally Pacholka. '' Maui No Ka 'Oi Magazine'' Vol.14, No.3 (May 2010) * {{Portal bar, Hawaii, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science Astronomical observatories in Hawaii Solar observatories Buildings and structures in Maui County, Hawaii Historic American Engineering Record in Hawaii University of Hawaiʻi 1961 establishments in Hawaii