FAQ

The sky at Hamurana is rated as a bortle three rural sky. Our view of the sky improves as twilight fades and our eyes adjust to the darkness. Our night vision takes about half an hour to adjust. The Milky Way appears as a bright band of light across the sky here. Our telescopes reveal literally millions of stars. Sometimes very favourable atmospheric conditions occur to provide breath-taking views of the Milky Way above the property.

You can check out the light pollution map here.

To see how how the full moon affects astronomy please see our blog article The Full Moon and Astronomy

All our telescopes manufactured for purpose quality astronomical instruments. These telescopes can find and track objects in the sky using databases with tens of thousands of objects. Our telescopes are suitable for observing the moon, planets, nebula, binary stars, globular clusters, and galaxies.

All our telescopes are equipped with two speed focusers and two-inch wide-view eyepieces. These are easier to look through than the smaller 1.25 eyepieces that often come with a new telescope. The two-inch eye pieces also work well for people with glasses. 

Hamurana Skies Limited is a family show. This is a gentle and low risk activity that does not require a high level of physical fitness. Although we do recommend that customers bring warm clothing like that worn on a walk in a forest. Families are welcome although the experiences are probably better suited for children who are over eight years of age. The guided tours are designed for people with between none to a lot of astronomical knowledge.  The tour of course comes with complimentary tea, coffee, or hot chocolate.

Except for planets and some stars, most objects viewed by the human eye through a telescope appear in monochrome. Although we keep our telescopes in top tune and often upgrade components to provide very detailed and crisp images. I have also conducted experiments with accessories such as filters, barlows, focal reducers, and cameras.

Yes, we do! We are more than happy to host more experienced astronomy enthusiast with their own equipment. These may be people who just want to escape city lights or might want to work alone on their own observation or astrophotography projects. We are members of the Rotorua Astronomical Society. 

Some of our equipment is portable and we can come to you by arrangement. We may be interested in outreach and attending star parties with our equipment.