Category: Postcard from the Summit

Photos from the top

Snow on the Summits

A gorgeous image released by NASA’s Earth Observatory this week. it features the recent snowfall atop our island’s summits. I suggest you go to the link above, download the 6k x 6k version, then just zoom in and enjoy the detail! (Sorry the full image is bigger than the WordPress size limit to post here)

OLI Hawaii
Recent snowfall atop Hawaiian summits as captured by NASA’s OLI imager aboard Landsat 8 on Dec 25th, 2016

Keck Timelapse Moonrise

Catching the moonrise in just the right spot and with just the right foreground takes planning and perseverance by the photographer. Sometimes things go right and you catch the shot, but you really do not know what you will catch in the final version until you see the final video…

Moon Muncher from Aaron Kupferman on Vimeo.

Snow on the Mountain

I am currently sitting at Hale Pōhaku on the side of the mauna waiting for the snowplows to get us access. We are all looking at the webcams and the drifts of snow in front of our facility wondering if we will make it up today.

It does not look like it was a huge amount of snow, rather the high winds re-sculpted the snow into drifts against the buildings and the road cuts. The result is some impressive snow drifts. The snowplow crews are reportedly making slow progress.

In the meantime all we have are the webcam images…