It took us a day to recover from the 20 hours of Kona spectating.  We managed to snorkel at a nearby beach in the afternoon, and that was about it.  By Monday, we had our mojo back and, after some family planning–urr, a family powwow–we spent the late afternoon snorkeling once again, then grilled some burgers and at 7:15 PM headed off for the day’s main adventure–star-gazing from the top of Mauna Kea.

We drove in the dark for 2 hours, through a light drizzle and fog, until we got above the cloud layer and reached Onizuka Visitor Center at 9,300 ft. elevation near the top of Mauna Kea.  The night was clear and windy, the sky was black, and stars were sprayed across the dome overhead like pixie dust.   A small group of people wandered among a cluster of telescopes.  Two of them were volunteer guides with laser pointers that they would shoot into the sky.

Stars everywhere…..Andromeda is only galaxy besides the Milky Way one can see with the naked eye…..that’s Perseus—-Betelgeuse is the red one….Orion won’t be up for another 2 hours. If you have trouble seeing these in the photo, look away because the rods in your peripheral vision are more sensitive to light….

We listened for about 20 minutes….that’s the Summer Triangle, there’s the Northern Cross, Cassiopeia points to the North Star, Orion will be up later, so will Jupiter, M61 is reddish, the Andromeda galaxy is 2.4 million light years…..until we realized the wind was sharp and we were REALLY cold, and apart from certain names, most stars look alike.  We could have been looking at a sea of thrashing swimmers and pointing at a white swim cap and saying, “There’s Daphne.”  Who knew if it really was?  Our perspective made us even colder.  Hawai’i is famous for having 7 of the world’s 10 defined climate zones, and if the shore is a “1”, the top of Mauna Kea must be a “7”.

Back in the car, smarting from the cold but no smarter for the experience.

So we rallied back to the car, where we laughed at our naiveté and pretense of astronomical interest as we drove the 2 hours back through clouds, fog and light rain to our house, arriving well past 11 PM.