What’s the view like, that high up? Pretty awesome, actually. Today’s blisteringly informative piece is about Mauna Kea—Hawaii’s largest mountain, and considered by some to be the largest mountain in the world (depending on where you start measuring). The real treat for continuing to read is the link I’ll give you to a live cam view of the 13,000 foot summit.

Mauna Kea is on the Big Island of Hawaii—host to the world’s largest astronomical observatory. Now, I thought that “astronomical” meant “largest” but apparently you can put the two words together and it’s twice as large, or something. Anyway, there’s a lot of telescopes up there.

Astronomers talk about light-gathering power. Supposedly, the combined light-gathering power of all the telescopes on Mauna Key is 15 times greater than that of the Palomar telescope in California.

Get this—Mauna Kea can gather 60 times the light of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble is orbiting the earth so it has a closer shot of things that are farther away.

Mauna Key means “white mountain” and is considered a “dormant volcano.” There’s “dormant” and “extinct.” Depending on your requirements, extinct is better since those kinds of volcanoes typically don’t rain down fire and sulphur and molten lava upon your head. God will do that in the final tribulation, but an extinct volcano won’t. Usually.

On the other hand, a “domant” volcano isn’t spewing forth fire and skulphur and molten lava. Yet. But it could. At any moment.

There’s not much besides clouds at the top of Mauna Kea. The lower slopes are popular for hiking, sightseeing, hunting, bird watching, and driving your rental car on Saddle Road, thereby breaking your rental car contract.

Why is Mauna Kea such a great place for astronomy (as opposed to astrology which has to do with stars…No. Wait. That’s Entertainment Tonight…astrology has something to do with telling your fortune based upon the position of the stars and the moon—since they’re always changing, so will your life…or so it seems to me)?

It’s dry up there. There’s no clouds at the very top (you usually look down on the clouds). The summit rise above 40-percent of the earth’s atmosphere. Somehow or another that’s good for telescopes.

So, what’s it look like up there? To see an official web cam photo of the summit, Click Here, or cut and paste the link below.

http://www.mlo.noaa.gov/LiveCam/Cam4C.htm

Who owns the place? Well, that gets complicated. The University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy once ran the summit. The University itself has a lease from the State of Hawaii for all land within a 2 and 1/2 mile radius of the site. That’s about all the land above the 12,000 foot level. Except for the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Area Reserve.

The summit is now the responsibility of the Office of Mauna Kea Management in Hilo on the Big Island.

Can you drive to the summit? Sorta. There are tours that’ll get you there. Rental cars are usually not allowed. There’s something about towing broken vehicles down a 13,000 foot mountain that the rental car companies don’t like.

Want to know the best places to eat in Hawaii? Click over to Ono Dining for totally biased reviews on Hawai's best (and not so best) restaurants.