A Keiki's Dream
The Keiki's Dream program grants dream days to children who have gone through particular hardships. Recently a boy going through the program wanted to visit the observatories on Haleakala. Any kid who gets a golden ticket and wants to spend it on astronomy is my kind of kid. Mark Elphick, the site manager of the Faulkes Telescope North showed the kid the observatory and even let him open the mirror cover.
After the tour he came down to Pukalani for a 2 hour RTI session. He imaged several targets, including a NEO candidate target from the PanSTARRS observatory. The PanSTARRS NEO candidate turned out to be a Mars crossing asteroid, but he was given credit on the Minor Planet Center report for his work observing the target. He even let his grandfather take a turn controlling the telescope.
Thank you to the Keiki's Dream Foundation for including us in this wonderful day... and evening!