Hoku Kea, University of Hawai’i’s 0.9 meter educational telescope

In April 2010, Hoku Kea, the University of Hawai'i's 36-inch (0.9m) educational telescope, was built and installed on Mauna Kea, but its installation crew quickly found it to be inoperable. During a Sept. 22, 2011, interview, UH Hilo Physics and Astronomy Department Chair Bill Heacox said there were problems with the primary and secondary mirrors and the control system.

Once the telescope is up and running, a control room in the UH Hilo Science and Technology Building will be able to operate it remotely. The central purpose of the telescope is to provide Physics and Astronomy students with hands-on training and research opportunities.

According to West Hawaii Today, UH Hilo received a $640,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for the telescope in 2002. Equinox Interscience of Golden, Colorado built the telescope, and it was originally scheduled to be operational in 2006. However, following several years of delays in obtaining permits, Heacox, who was initially the telescope's principal investigator, estimated that it wouldn't be up and running until Fall 2009.

Up until two years ago, Heacox was essentially handling the project on his own until he hired an observatory director, David James. James came in and worked with him to get the telescope installed. According to Heacox it was a lot of work and took about a year. After that, James left for another position and Josh Walawender took over as observatory director.

In a Sept. 22, 2011 interview, Walawender said, "After the telescope was recently examined and realignment issues were addressed, it was determined that one residual aberration on the telescope remains." The mirrors will be sent to an optics lab where they will be tested and polished to the exact figure they need to be. Walawender also said the mirrors are already packed up, and they will be shipped within the next couple of weeks after final crating.

Students and faculty alike are anxious to get the telescope running. According to Heacox, "There's a lot of disappointment that it's not ready, and there are students here who are going to graduate this semester who have not had a chance to use the telescope." He acknowledged the disappointment of the faculty as well; they want to revise the astronomy curriculum in a way that incorporates the telescope but have so far been unable to do it because of the delay.

Further, students no longer have access to an education telescope. The UH Hilo Observatory that used to house the 24-inch telescope has been decommissioned for the installation of the inoperable 36-in telescope. Josh Walawender said that people are eager to see this running "simply because…even though the 24-inch telescope had its own set of problems, it was there, and it was useable for students who were willing to do the two hours to go up."

Despite his frustrations, Heacox said, "We're learning to live with it and we're determined to make it work. And we have the chancellor who's willing to give us the resources we need to make it work so there's no question in my mind now that it's going to work."

Although Heacox and Walawender are confident that the telescope will be up and running soon, both are well aware that getting a telescope to work is not an easy task. Heacox said, "What most people don't realize about telescopes is that every one of them is a custom instrument." The design of the telescope and the surrounding architecture depend on the site and the specifications of the actual hardware. "And custom, sophisticated instruments are difficult to get running," he pointed out.

Walawender also expressed his optimism. His hope is that next summer the telescope will be ready for on sight operations. There is similar consideration that at some point in the next six months to a year remote observations will be made possible.

Although the central purpose of the telescope is to give students hands-on experience, Walawander also intends the telescope to have a mode where it runs automatically. Walawender explained that "if no one's sitting there, it can run…on its own." The idea is to make use of otherwise nonproductive down time.

The installation of Hoku Kea will be a staged move in operation, but once it is remote or even robotic, a wide range of possibilities will open up. For one, the telescope will be capable of participating in a new area of astronomy research called "time domain." This concept essentially means watching how things (e.g. variable stars) change.