Welcome to
   Twilight Tours

Come and join us as we experience one of
Nature's most incredible shows.

Twilight Tours, Inc. is committed to providing the amateur, professional, and lay astronomy community access to unique, transient, and significant astronomical events wherever and whenever they occur around the world.

Started in 1984 by Joel Harris, stemming from his personal eclipse-chasing experiences, Twilight Tours staged its first expedition to observe the total solar eclipse off New Caledonia, in the Coral Sea, aboard the MV Cap de Pins. Since then, Twilight Tours has conducted expeditions to observe Comet Halley (1986), three annular solar eclipses (1992, 1994, 2002), and eight total solar eclipses (1988, 1991, 1992,1994,1998, 1999, 2001 and 2002).

Twilight Tours is not a travel agency. It neither markets nor issues airline tickets, bus tours, or provides services to recreational travelers such as rental vehicles, hotel rooms, or theme park packages.  It works in concert with major travel wholesalers to formulate its expeditions. Too, the company does not market its packages to retail agencies or chains. Rather, it directly sells its programs to the amateur and professional astronomy communities through occasional advertising in topical periodicals, feature stories, and solicitation of past expedition participants.

In 1991, the firm operated its largest movement of people to observe the 11 July 1991 total solar eclipse in Southern Baja, Mexico. Over 530 people traveled to the Los Cabos resort area, using 13 flights on three different airlines. Seven hotels were used to accommodate the expedition group participants. During the tour, photographic, observational, and other seminars were conducted at both beginning and advanced levels.

Company president Joel Harris is a former staff member of the world-famous Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering Technology at DeVry University in Long Beach, California in October 1997, graduating with honors. He has authored numerous feature articles on the topics of eclipse observation, major astronomical facilities around the globe, and astronomically themed travel for both Astronomy and Sky and Telescope magazines. His first book, Chasing the Shadow- An Observers Guide to Eclipses, with co-author Richard Talcott, appeared in 1994, from Kalmbach Publishers.

Twilight Tours is among the few original companies in the U.S. to first specialize in organizing, marketing, directing, and operating astronomical tours to solar eclipses. The next two expeditions planned are: an extremely rare Transit of Venus (June 2004) in Southern Africa, and the total solar eclipse of March 2006 (Northern Africa/Turkey).

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