Necker Island, Hawai'i: Astronomical Implications of an Island Located on the Tropic of Cancer

Stretching out beyond the major islands Hawai'i all the way to Midway and the Kure Atoll lie the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands made up of a number of rocky islets, reefs and atolls. One must travel some 240 kilometers west-northwest of Kaua'i before coming to the first island in this Hawaiian chain, little Nihoa, and then it is another 280 km on to the next, even smaller island, Necker. According to the Atlas of Hawaii, the area of the larger of the two, Nihoa, is 77.2 hectares (190 acres) or just over three-quarters of a square kilometer.