The University of Hawaii (UH) at Hilo announced on Tuesday, July 7, that the oldest telescope in Mauna Kea will be decommissioned. The process will be put into action at the beginning of 2016.
The said telescope is part of the UH Hilo Educational Telescope on the Hoku Kea observatory site. The decommissioning procedure will be guided by the processes presented in the Office of Mauna Kea Management's Comprehensive Management Plan.
David Ige, Hawaii's governor, announced in spring that about 25 percent of the telescopes on Mauna Kea should be shut down in preparation for the operations of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in 2024. This is one of the reasons why the UH Hilo educational telescope was decommissioned.
Hoku Kea is the oldest and smallest observatory on the mountain. The telescope, measuring 24 inches, was first set up by the U.S. Air Force in 1968, following UH's installation of the first ever major observatory on the mountain, which is a 2.2 meter telescope.
At present, the Hoku Kea observatory is not functional. It was actually moved to the UH Hilo in the 1990s to serve as an educational tool. The original equipment was upgraded to a 36-inch telescope but was later found to be deficient. The manufacturer of the said replacement telescope closed down its business and the funds spent were impossible to take back, says Dan Meisenzahl, spokesperson of UH.
There is no existing construction underground in Hoku Kea, so the process of decommissioning may be easier and cheaper compared to the decommissioning of other telescopes.
Shortly after the announcement was made, the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the state attorney general both said they are looking at formulating an emergency rule to curb continuous protests against the TMT project.
The rule, according to Kealoha Pisciotta, a spokesperson from one of the groups protesting the TMT's construction, aims to restrict demonstrators from going to the mountain. More specifically, anyone with camping equipment such as tents and backpacks will be prohibited from staying within a mile of the access road of the observatories. Any access will also be limited from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. The Board of Land and Natural Resources will review the proposed rule on Friday, July 10.
The process of the Hoku Kea observatory decommissioning is estimated to be completed in 2018, after the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory's pre-scheduled shutdown. In May, it was announced that the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory would also start to be decommissioned in 2016, which is expected to be completed in 2018. At present, no new telescope projects or observatory constructions are planned in the area.
