QUESTION:
Do you ever go anywhere else besides Hawaii?

ANSWER from Wendy Whiting on May 20:
Yes, the KAO has traveled to many locations around the
world.  One place we go to frequently is New Zealand, which,
because of its location in the Southern Hemisphere, allows
us to study southern-sky objects which aren't visible from
the U.S.   In addition to traveling south in order to see
the southern sky, we also have traveled to remote locations
to view special events such as solar eclipses and stellar
occultations.  

A stellar occultation is similar to an eclipse - in an occultation, 
an object such as a planet, moon, or comet passes in front of a star.  
Both eclipses and occultations cast a shadow on the earth and to view 
them the telescope must be at a certain location at a certain time.  
The shadows from eclipses and occultations may occur in extremely remote 
places over the earth, and many times there are no telescopes in those 
places.  So, using the KAO, we can fly to the exact location at the exact 
time for viewing the event.  

For example, last summer I was in charge of a KAO expedition to South 
America, where we observed the occultation of a star by Triton, one of 
the moons of the planet Neptune.  To make the observation, we flew a 
ten hour flight 3000 miles to the Northeast of Punta Arenas, Chile; this 
put us over a remote patch of ocean in the South Atlantic!  Needless to
say, we were the only observatory to be in the optimal location for the 
occultation!