Golf & Star Gazing - on the same day

Golf Day

The guys decided they would golf at least once, so this was the day - they headed to the Hapuna Prince Golf Course for a mid-morning tee-time.

Ocean view from the fairway

After the golf game late in the afternoon Barry and I headed up to the Maunakea Observatory Visitor Information Station.  It's a little over an hours drive from Waikoloa Village, six miles up off the highway to approximately 9,300 feet.  They host a star gazing information session every night of the week from 6-10pm which includes a video inside the building there, and then they set up multiple telescopes to view the night sky.

We arrived around 5:30, people were beginning to congregate and then at 6pm we went inside to watch an informative video, and then at 6:15 we began the hike up even farther to watch the sunset.

That's where we're headed - all the way to the top to watch the sunset.

The staff there were setting up and calibrating the telescopes while most of the crowd headed off up the mountain for the sunset.

We stopped part way up to take a photo and catch our breath.

Looking back down on where we parked at the Visitor Information Station

We were higher than the clouds, here you see the sun slowly sinking into them.  It was quite cold up there, I had to put my cowl sweatshirt up around my ears to keep them warm.   Now it was time to go back down to the Station where we got an informative talk about the various constellations, it was an amazing clear night to see everything as there we no moon.  We picked a good night to go!