19°49′12″N · 155°28′24″W Elevation 9,200 ft · Bortle Class 1 · Mahina Pō — moon dark Nov 28 Tonight: clear, 38°F
The Milky Way arcing over a mountaintop observatory dome at night
Approach  ◦  39 min from Hilo— up the saddle road, past the cattle gate, last left before the heavens

The night sky — as it was meant to be seen. Twelve guests per evening · Operating since 1998

On the eastern flank of Mauna Kea, two thousand feet above the trade-wind clouds, light pollution falls to zero. The Milky Way is no longer a stripe but a structure — dust lanes, the curve of the Sagittarius arm, the heart of our galaxy bright enough to cast a shadow.

Reserve · this week → What's visible tonight ↓
LAT  +19.8200°
LON  -155.4733°
ELE  9,202 ft
BCL  1
SQM  21.96
FOG  below

Above us, tonight.

Six objects we'll find first — between 7:42 PM (astronomical twilight) and the rising of the gibbous moon at 11:18 PM.

M 31 · NGC 224

Andromeda

Naked eye — east

Two and a half million light-years away, larger than our own galaxy, drifting on a collision course we will not witness.

mag +3.4
Saturn · 06 ring

Saturn

12″ scope — south

The rings are tilted 9° toward Earth this season — the Cassini Division visible as a thread of black at 220× magnification.

mag +0.6
M 42 · Orion Nebula

Orion

Binoculars — southeast

A stellar nursery 1,344 light-years out. Hydrogen and oxygen glowing under the radiation of the four young Trapezium stars.

mag +4.0
α Lyr · Vega

Vega

Naked eye — west

Twenty-five light-years from us, the fifth-brightest star in the night sky, surrounded by a debris disk where planets may yet form.

mag +0.03
— Three guided evenings —

How to spend a night.

i.

The Lōkahi Standard

3.5 hrs · 6:30 – 10:00 PM
A guided walk through the constellations, time on the 16-inch Dobsonian, and naked-eye discussion of deep-sky targets. Hot kava and blankets included.
$ 140per guest
ii.

The Astrophotographer's Evening

5 hrs · 6:00 – 11:00 PM
Bring your camera body. We supply the tracker, the lens loaner, and an hour of one-on-one coaching on stacking and post. Up to four guests only.
$ 320per guest
iii.

The private dome

Until 3 AM · by arrangement
The full evening, the full instrument list, a private guide — and the dome until the eastern sky takes back the stars. For two to six.
$ 1,800flat · group

Four instruments, all hand-collimated.

We do not own a telescope made after 2008. The optics — Newtonian primary, Mak-Cass secondary, two refractors — are mounted on equatorial drives that we balance ourselves at the start of every evening.

Nothing here is automated. The guide finds the object on the star atlas, walks the scope across by hand, and you look through it the way Galileo did — without a screen between you and the photons.

Primary
Obsession 16″
Long-focus
C-11 Mak-Cass
Wide-field
TV NP-101
Solar
Lunt LS80THa
— ORION · CHART 21 —
"
I had read about the Milky Way casting shadows. Up there, on the third night, I saw my own — cast in starlight. I am still trying to write about it correctly.
— K. Tan · The Atlantic · April 2024

The next dark moon.

Reservations open on the new moon and close when we fill. We are at three of twelve seats for the window of November 26 — December 4.

Reserve a seat → Gift an evening