Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above
website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed
sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above,
we pass this GPS location for Paholoi:
20.880278, -156.345556
Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.
We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as Paholoi to various places of note, such as the White House.
With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance<2> beginning in Paholoi and extending to:
Honolulu, which is the State Capital of Hawaii, lies 101 miles [162.5 km]<2> to the west northwest (WNW). If you could drive a straight line from Paholoi to Honolulu, with an average speed<3>of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, it would take less than two hours to make the trip. A comfortable walk of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour would take 6 days. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take three full days.
The White House (Washington, DC) is 4,763 miles [7,665.3 km] to the northeast (NE). Driving would take 10 days, a buggy would take 186 days and walking would take 271 days.
The shortest distance<4> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 8,713 miles [14,022.2 km] and it lies to the north northwest (NNW).<5>
The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 9,310 miles [14,983 km] and it lies to the north northwest (NNW).<6>
The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 8,035 miles [12,931.1 km] and it lies to the north (N).<7>'
Footnotes ...
<1>
While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>
Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Paholoi) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>
While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<4>
The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Paholoi to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Paholoi. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 20.8803, Longitude: -156.3456 In this case, the coordinates for Paholoi have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<5>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 12.207 degrees.
<6>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 21.449 degrees.
<7>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 350.714 degrees.