HALEAKALA – An oversight board has chosen Haleakala as the preferred site for the world’s biggest and most advanced solar telescope.
Work on an environmental impact study will begin shortly, focusing on an area at the summit just east of the existing Mees Solar Observatory.
Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, director of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, said Thursday that the 4-meter (13-foot-diameter) telescope might celebrate “first light” around 2011.
“It’s a very, very challenging telescope,” he said, and it will take years to design and build its components.
A consortium of 36 schools, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, selected the site. After reviewing 70 sites originally under consideration by a site selection working group, the top choices were Maui and the Canary Islands, with Haleakala winning the nod.
The AURA board of directors made its decision Thursday, endorsing recommendations of the Advanced Solar Technology Telescope Science Working Group.
The cost of the system is estimated at $161 million. Funding would come from the National Science Foundation.
The foundation has not funded the project yet, but since the project earned an excellent rating, it is expected to get its money.
The Friends of Haleakala National Park board will meet Tuesday with the telescope on its agenda. President Charles Fein said the group has not taken any position regarding the telescope, although the preferred site near the Mees observatory is indicated on the IfA’s Haleakala Long-Range Development Plan.
Some of the group’s founders were unhappy with the last big structure at Science City, the Air Force’s Advanced Electro-Optical System telescope. Although the mirrors of those telescopes are the same size, the solar telescope will not need the enormous structure that AEOS required to track fast-moving objects in space.
The solar telescope need move only at the sun’s pace across the sky. It also will be located in an area that is not visible from the Haleakala National Park’s summit viewing area or from the Central Maui isthmus.
Charles K. Maxwell Sr., a Hawaiian kahu, said any development on the summit must include cultural monitoring while anyone working at the facility should be required to undergo “sense of place” instruction.
“In ancient times the kahuna poo (high priests) knew the value of Haleakala as a place to view the planets and the stars, and as a place for meditation and receiving spiritual wisdom,” he said. “Haleakala is a sacred place and must be treated with respect.”
He noted that the IfA Long- Range Development Plan requires consultation with Native Hawaiians as well as cultural training for those who work at Science City.
Kudritzki estimated that it might take 20 to 30 people to operate and maintain the telescope.
There is also a possibility that the National Solar Observatory, based in New Mexico, might move to Maui (and Manoa) to be next to its premier piece of equipment.
No such decision has been made, and it is too early, but Kudritzki said, “It makes a lot of sense.”
The NSO might bring 100 employees, mostly to Maui. Only a small fraction would be astronomers.
Kudritzki said the solar telescope “will provide deep insight into the role that the sun plays in our lives.”
While most forms of astronomy have no particular impact on the daily lives of ordinary people, solar research involves studies of solar fluctuations, which affect climate over short and very long periods, as well as transitory magnetic storms caused by solar flares that sometimes interfere with cell phones. Intense solar eruptions have been known to impact electrical transmission lines on Earth as well as satellite communications.
UH interim President David McClain said the selection “shows the importance of the university for the development of technology programs with broader educational and economic impact on all Hawaiian Islands.”
Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.
