The Mauna Kea observatories on the Big Island take the spotlight at the next University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy's Maui Maikalani Community Lecture on Thursday.

The film "Hawaiian Starlight: Exploring the Universe from Mauna Kea" will be shown, providing time-lapse cinematography set to music and animated sequences of true-color images of the cosmos captured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

Jean-Charles Cuillandre, an astronomer with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, will discuss the origin and technical aspects of "Hawaiian Starlight," which he worked on over a period of six years.

The free event will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Maikalani, the Institute for Astronomy's Advanced Technology Research Center in the Kulamalu Town Center in Pukalani.