Hawaii Eco Tour - Mauna Kea Summit Adventure

As you travel up the mountain, you'll learn about island geology and natural history from our experts. While acclimatizing at the Onizuka Visitor's Center (9,000 feet), find out why the world's largest telescopes are located here and a bit about the lives of astronomers. You will then enjoy a delicious and hearty dinner of either Beef Short Ribs, Teriyaki Chicken or a Tofu-Spinach Wrap.

Before leaving the visitor's center, you'll be suited with parkas and gloves and shift into four-wheel drive for the steep half hour drive to the top. On the summit, your guide will point out the observatories as they begin to open and rotate into position. Here, you will watch as the sunset transforms the area into a beautiful and quite unearthly spectacle. When the best of the color has past, you'll descend to mid-mountain, where the sky is equally clear but the climate is much more comfortable for stargazing.

Enjoy hot drinks during the "Star Party" as Mauna Kea Summit Adventure guides, who are famous for their ability to locate the treasures of the night sky and interpret them in a way that everyone can understand, make this an unforgettable evening. Whenever possible they explore the sky using a large portable telescope, taking time to diagram the constellations and teach some basic astronomy.

The tour will return approximately 1 hour 45 minutes later to the center to set up telescopes for stargazing

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Fantastic views of the Mauna Kea vista

Telescopes:

Mauna Kea Summit Adventures use Celestron Nexstar 9.25" GPS telescopes and at 9.25" they gather 45% more light than the models used by other companies on the mountain. They are equipped with I new Starbright XLT coating which further enhance the light throughput by another 10%+. Using GPS and a computer these scopes can find 40,000 objects automatically. The computer allows you to see more exotic objects that are usually too time consuming to view normally, and they look much brighter and clearer because of the bigger optics.