Star Gazer's Delight

Well, it's our time to check out of the Sea Village & head toward Hilo, and after a little lanai sittin'( HEY, there goes an ultralight!) and packing we're out by 9:30 & up to Safeway to get grab for our "isolated" next stop near Punalu'u. We spend some big bucks at Safeway, but since I join their "club", we save $70 ! That was the best minute I ever spent! (Filling out the form.) A call from Cami that she & David are going out to visit Dottie tomorrow, weather permitting..it's a bit chilly in OKC (20), but no snow. Pack up our groceries & head toward two-step for some snorkeling as it's on the way. A couple of stops before that & down to the water and the usual 150 or so people here, and lots of fish. A little bit of lounging but I go to get the car as KK has stubbed her toe (me too) and it's painful to walk. A lunch stop at an L&L BBQ place and it's a so-so meal, but gas has dropped to 4.32 a gal!..WOW! The fuel comes into Hilo & is trucked over the mountain to Kona, hence the bigger price there. YEA! We find our place, the Sea Mountain Resort, by the black sand beach & more roaring surf. (But will the Wifi be better?) Unpack asap as we want to head toward Hilo & up to Mauna Kea & the telescope night with the University Of Hawaii Astronomy students. It's just over an hour to Hilo & then another hour up to the visitor center, over a very rough & windy road...BUT ALAS! What do we have ? Just about 5 miles up Saddle Road from Hilo, the road is brand new, with 3 lanes & 55 MPH! UNBELIEVABLE! Then a Right turn and 6 miles up to the Ellison Onizuka Center ( named after Hawai'is astronat who was killed in the Challenger accident.) We get up there just in time as all of the telescopes have been put in place and trained on distance objects like Jupiter, Venus, Orion (my favorite) & other nebulae. At this point folks, I could write 10 pages of detail on the things we saw, but I'll keep it down as it was quite unreal. First the big 16" scope was trained on Jupiter, which is fab, but the old guy (my age) who was running the telescope was pretty excited & an expert astronomer & we got his life story every 10 minutes or so. Another scope is on Orion & very good but things are getting better! When it gets darker, and the big one turns toward Orion, it is awesome! We are looking right at the Nebula and we can see the gas clouds! He has an enhanced filter that pushes the power up by 100 times! So it's like one of the really big ones just a few thousand feet above us. We also get some pictures with KK's phone! The astronomy students at Hawaii University at Hilo are helping out and leading discussions & it's a great night and clear as a bell! Now we look at the Andromeda Spiral Galaxy , M37 , M79, the Eskimo Nebula, and the "Horse head" Nebula, a black looking nebula that has "light" around it, but the light is another nebula that is 1000 light years beyond ! (This is all located in the Orion Nebula.) OK, that's all we could take, so back down the mountain, about 9:45 to Hilo & a late supper at Ken's Pancake House..I had Kokonut pancakes with coconut syrup & KK had a burger. A quick stop at Wally during a rain storm..in Hilo?..and on the road back to Sea Mtn. We arrive at 1:00 am and what a day! Let's sleep in!! MAHALO!