Hawai’i Earthquake
I’m a little late in reporting this one, but I thought you’d be interested to see how the observatories on Mauna Kea, Hawai’i (my favourite place in the world) are responding to a larger than usual Earthquake that happened ten or so days ago. That Hawai’i is a violent place is obvious to anyone who has visited the Kilauea volcano, the world’s longest running erruption, but at magnitude 6.5 or so this was a much bigger quake than the usual tremors. Worst hit was Keck – both at the summit and in their control room, which was on the side of the island closest to the source. This picture showing staff working to move the telescope by hand, seems to sum up the effort involved…
and as proof there’s an earthquake, here’s a record of how the telescope I use – the JCMT – responded to the shake. My infamous jinx with anything mechanical has caused many things to go wrong here but this is new even for me…
on October 26th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Hi Chris,
It is such a relief that the telescopes didn’t suffer any serious damage. It looks so peaceful and sereen up there, you tend to forget at it is the top of a volcano in a geologically active area!
Great picture of the workers moving the telescope by hand, that must have taken some effort!
Let’s hope there’s no more activity for a very long time.
John.