Technicians at the W. M. Keck Observatory on the island of Hawaii are in the process of restoring operations to the station's twin giant telescopes, which were disrupted by the magnitude-6.7 earthquake and aftershocks that hit the west coast of the island Sunday morning. The earthquake was the largest in Hawaii in 20 years and caused power and communication failures across the state but caused no deaths or serious injuries.
Laura Kinoshita, the media representative for the facility, says the twin 10-meter telescopes, located at the summit of Mauna Kea, were not damaged by the temblor. Likewise, the observatory's computers, adaptive optics, and overall structure were not harmed. But both instruments, which weigh 272 metric tons each, did rock back and forth on their mountings during the event, causing their restraining bolts to be stressed and bent. The precision reference mounts on Keck I, which can pinpoint where the telescope is being aimed, were damaged. Kinoshita says the technicians are hoping to have the instrument back "on sky" by later this week. The situation is slightly worse with Keck II, she says, because it suffered some damage to the system that moves the telescope on its tracks. All data being stored at the facility have been backed up and are considered safe.
Kinoshita says the timing of the quake was fortunate in one respect. The facility has been experiencing bad weather, so observing activities would have been curtailed this week anyway.
As soon as the repairs are completed and both telescopes have resumed operations, the observatory team will attempt to assess how to avoid similar problems the next time around. "No one liked the idea of the telescopes rocking on their mounts," says Kinoshita.
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