Mauna Kea Stargazing Experience + Free Photos

Journey to a remote stargazing location, far from culturally sensitive and touristy locations to truly enjoy the dark skies of Hawaii and explore remote Mars-like locations on Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa for a unique stargazing experience unlike any other.

This tour stays below 9000 feet elevation, is safe for any age, and is led by James, an Analog-Astronaut and Astro-Photographer, as well as Dylan, an astrophysics major and telescope operator.

Tour description

Your guides James and Dylan will lead a stargazing program using a high-powered green laser pointer. During that time, we will be using a deep space camera setup to zoom into nebulas, star clusters, and galaxies.

Towards the end of the experience groups will split off one by one with James to take Milky Way portrait photos while other groups will be listening to Dylan’s interactive StarTalk lecture.

All medium resolution photos taken throughout the trip of deep space objects and of your group are included in the price.

This is the only stargazing adventure in Hawaii that doesn’t do stargazing tours when the moon is brighter than 20%. When the moon is brighter than that, the night sky is too bright and the stars are too few to properly enjoy stargazing. All time slots are hand-selected for optimal stargazing views.

Tour location

The stargazing location will be picked depending on the local weather conditions (clouds!), but is always at altitudes below 9k feet on either Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa. This means the tour is safe for young children. James, your guide, has extensive knowledge of the area, and knows how to avoid touristy areas with lots of people, buses or cars around.

Stargazing and astrophotography

Once you arrive on the stargazing spot of the night the tour can really start. With luck you’ll end up at one of the places NASA uses to test equipment for lunar and Mars missions (and about which your guide has some good stories to tell – ask him about HI-SEAS!). Then you’ll get a tour of the night sky with a green laser pointer to see various constellations, planets, nebulas, and hopefully some shooting stars.

Towards the end of the experience groups will split off one by one with James to take Milky Way portrait photos (see below) while other groups will be listening to Dylan’s interactive StarTalk lecture.

Finally you get to almost everyone’s favorite part: taking epic astro-photos of you with the stars in the background! See the image gallery near the top of this page for examples of what these photos look like. All of the complimentary photos that are taken throughout the experience will be sent to you within 5 days after the trip at medium resolution. You’ll get Instagram worthy photos included at no extra cost along with some free Lightroom photo editing.

The only Big Island tour with a stargazing guarantee.

Even though the higher slopes of Mauna Kea are famously good for stargazing, clouds and a bright moon sometimes impact the ability to look at the stars. This tour is the only one in Hawaiʻi that guarantees clear skies. Here is how that works:

If the weather is cloudy 90 minutes prior to the tour, your guide will get in touch with you for a “cloud delay” of up to 90 minutes. If weather doesn’t get better after that, you will be offered the option to rebook or a full refund.

How is this tour different from stargazing tours that go to the Maunakea Summit?

The biggest difference between this tour and other stargazing tours that go to the Maunakea summit are the location and duration of the tour.

Duration: This tour only last 2 hours, while tours going to the Maunakea summit typically last 7 to 8 hours.

Location: This tour does not go to the Maunakea summit so you won’t get to see the telescopes or the sunset from up there. The stargazing part of both kinds of tours happens from similar elevation, so the quality of the night sky is the same for both tours.

Two advantages of not going to the summit are:

1. This tour is safe for children of all age as we won’t go to really high elevations. (However, because of the timing and nature of the tour (standing around), we don’t recommend this tour for children below the age of 5).
2. Tours that go to the summit must leave there within 30 minutes after sunset, and thus their stargazing always happens early in the night. Because this tour doesn’t have to sunset constraint we can organize our tours late at night which helps (A) to see many interesting night sky objects and (B) to avoid almost all of the other tour companies, giving you a more private and unique experience.

If you’d rather join a tour that also takes you to see the summit and the telescopes we can recommend this one.

About your tour guide

James Ward is an Astronomy Major at the University of Hawaii and has over 8 years of experience as the owner/guide and astrophotographer for the Mauna Kea Stargazing Experience. He also worked at the HI-SEAS Habitat (*) assisting as Mission Support for simulated moon and Mars missions – this is another reason he know the area so well and a fun topic to ask him about!

(*): HI-SEAS (The Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) is an analog habitat for human spaceflight to Mars located in an isolated position on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano.

James Ward is an Astronomy Major at the University of Hawaii and has over 8 years of experience as the owner of Epic Tours and guide and astrophotographer for the Mauna Kea Stargazing Experience. He also worked at the HI-SEAS Habitat (*) assisting as Mission Support for simulated moon and Mars missions – this is another reason he know the area so well and a fun topic to ask him about!

Most importantly, James gets GREAT reviews for this tour from all of his customers, who are especially happy with his storytelling, love of astronomy, knowledgeable explanations of objects in the sky, and photographic expertise.

(*): HI-SEAS (The Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) is an analog habitat for human spaceflight to Mars located in an isolated position on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano.

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