10 Sunday, December 24, 2017 A tour like no other Kama‘aina Observatory Experience gives the public a rare glance inside powerful telescopes There are some questions that cut across languages and cultures: Why are we here? How was the universe created? Those sorts of existential thoughts have guided science, art and religion for centuries. It’s also the same curiosity that drives the research on Maunakea, and it’s what Bill Healey, a former supervisor with the W. M. Keck Observatory, tries to instill in visitors who walk through the domes of some of most powerful telescopes on Earth. “I don’t care what your beliefs are about how the universe came to be,” he told a recent tour group. “It could have been created, it could have been some unexplained instant of physics. It makes no difference to us. … It’s there and we should all wonder” about it. Healey leans slightly forward as he engages with the group on a Saturday in September at Keck, speaking sometimes with outstretched hands, but always with a healthy dose of enthusiasm. “All you have to do is go out on a beach on a dark night and look at (the stars),” he said, when asked about life on other worlds. “It goes on and on and on. So there’s billions of galaxies and billions of stars, and just the odds are there’s got to be something else up there.” The tour is part of the Kama‘aina Observatory Experience, a free program that started in early 2016 to give Hawaii residents a better understanding of what the telescopes do on the mountain. The tour rotates between two observatories each month. While the observatories have long sponsored By TOM CALLIS Hawaii Tribune-Herald See TOUR Page 12 Guests take photos on the catwalk of the Subaru Telescope in September during the Kama‘aina Observatory Experience on Maunakea. HOLLYN JOHNSON/Tribune-Herald Hawaii Tribune-Herald
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