Big Island Feature

There's a meeting of the minds on the mountaintop, with 13 telescopes operated by astronomers from around the world. Although the telescopes are owned and operated by various countries and organizations, any research team can book time on the equipment.

A U.S.-Japan team comprising astronomers from the University of Hawaii, University of Tokyo, Tohoku University, and Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science made an important discovery of distant galaxies obscured by cosmic dust, using the JCMT telescope, which is jointly owned and operated by the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands. Similarly, a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii recently used the Keck telescopes (owned/operated by Caltech and the University of California) to discover a distant galaxy that gives astronomers a glimpse of the Dark Ages, when galaxies and stars were first forming in the universe. Here's a list of the telescopes and their owners.

UH 0.6-m telescope University of Hawaii

UH 2.2-m telescope University of Hawaii

IRTF (NASA Infrared Telescope Facility) NASA

CFHT (Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope) Canada/France/University of Hawaii

UKIRT (United Kingdom Infrared Telescope) United Kingdom

Keck I (W. M. Keck Observatory) Caltech/University of California

Keck II (W. M. Keck Observatory) Caltech/University of California

Subaru (Subaru Telescope) Japan

Gemini (Gemini Northern Telescope) USA/UK/Canada/Argentina/Australia/Brazil/Chile

CSO (Caltech Submillimeter Observatory) Caltech/National Science Foundation (NSF)

JCMT (James Clerk Maxwell Telescope) UK/Canada/Netherlands

SMA (Submillimeter Array) Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory/Taiwan

VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) National Radio Astronomers Observatory (NRAO)/Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI)/NSF