Welcome to Ring of Fire Expeditions

 

“We will find our place under the sun”–from a Hungarian poem

Ring of Fire Expeditions (ROFE) is the longest consecutive astronomical tour organization in the United States. ROFE specializes in astro-tourism since 1970 with expeditions organized and led by Paul D. Maley of the NASA Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society and arranged by Future Travel in Houston, Texas USA. These include tours to observe such events as Halley’s Comet, the Leonid meteor shower, transit of Venus, spacecraft reentries, solar eclipses, grazing occultations, and occultations of stars by minor planets.

The number of eclipse tours listed that we have completed are for separate solar eclipses, not just individual programs. We are a public outreach effort of the NASA Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society led by amateur astronomers and welcome all persons who are interested in astronomy and the natural sciences. You do not need to have a science background or any prior experience to join us!

Some expeditions have challenges which we do our best to work around. For example, the photo below shows a military escort for our team in Turkey in 1999.

 

We do our best to witness the power and glory of a solar eclipse,

a spectacular comet,

meteor shower,

or erupting volcano.

Solar eclipse expeditions of the NASA Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society  in Houston, Texas began in 1970 when Paul D. Maley and J. Wesley Simpson traveled to the total solar eclipse in Valdosta, Georgia. As an initiative to expand public outreach of the Society, Paul continued organizing expeditions off and on during the 1970s whose purpose expanded in 1983 to including science goals of what is now the International Occultation Timing Association. In 1990 the name RING OF FIRE EXPEDITIONS was adopted. Expeditions have now included such diverse scientific phenomena as earth satellite reentries, occultations of stars by asteroids, Halley’s Comet, eclipses of the moon and more.  More than 1000 people have participated in ROFE expeditions through 2010 from around the USA and many countries.

While most RING OF FIRE total solar eclipse expeditions travel to the center line to obtain maximum totality, we sometimes have a small secondary expedition to observe near the edge of the path of totality. We also observe annular eclipses and will observe either from the edge where Baily’s Beads phenomena are wonderfully prevelant, or the center line. We strive to keep the group sizes reasonable; sometimes the overall demand exceeds our expectations. For our larger expeditions we conduct a site survey (when possible) in order to obtain the best possible observing locations, with tour group safety as our primary concern.  Future Travel (formerly Hanssen Future Travel) has handled all expeditions since 1977.

SOLAR ECLIPSES I HAVE SEEN

The following is list of all the solar eclipses I have attempted.  The formal Ring of Fire Expeditions number is listed in the column to the right. At the urging of colleagues I am now including partial eclipses which I do not count in my list of historical expeditions.  Many annular and total eclipses were observed from the edge where Baily’s Beads science was attempted.   The ‘eclipse type’ below is the resultant eclipse where I attempted observation. For example, if the eclipse was total and I was not able to get to the zone of totality, I attempted observation as close as I could get to the location of totality. In that case I would list it as partial.  This was especially difficult in my early years where I was not able to afford travel. The location is the name of the closest town, named village. The NASA Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society eclipse team is represented by the Texas flag. If you see this flag at an eclipse, it is probably RING OF FIRE EXPEDITIONS.

NUMBER	DATE	ECLIPSE TYPE	LOCATION OBSERVED	ROFE#
1	9/20/60	PARTIAL	LOS ANGELES, CA USA
2	7/20/63	PARTIAL	SAN ANTONIO, TX USA
3	5/9/67	PARTIAL	EDINBURG, TX USA
4	9/11/69	PARTIAL	HOUSTON, TX USA
5	3/7/70	TOTAL	VALDOSTA, GA USA	1
6	7/10/72	TOTAL	CAP CHAT, QUEBEC, CANADA	2
7	12/24/73	ANNULAR	ACAPULCO, MEXICO	3
8	12/13/74	PARTIAL	HOUSTON, TX USA
9	10/12/77	TOTAL	LAKE GUATAVITA, COLOMBIA	4
10	2/26/79	TOTAL	LAKE WINNIPEG, CANADA	5
11	2/16/80	TOTAL	KENYA	6
12	8/10/80	PARTIAL	HOUSTON, TX USA
13	7/20/82	PARTIAL	LONDON, UK
14	6/11/83	TOTAL	BANGIL, JAVA, INDONESIA	7
15	5/30/84	TOTAL-ANNULAR	ATLANTA, GA USA	8
16	11/22/84	TOTAL	KWIKILA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA	9
17	5/19/85	PARTIAL	ANCHORAGE, AK USA
18	10/3/86	PARTIAL	HOUSTON, TX USA
19	3/29/87	TOTAL-ANNULAR	LIBREVILLE, GABON	10
20	9/23/87	ANNULAR	TAIYUAN, CHINA	11
21	3/7/89	PARTIAL	SCOTTSDALE, AZ USA
22	7/22/90	PARTIAL	HONOLULU, HI USA
23	1/15/91	ANNULAR	NORTH ISLAND, NEW ZEALAND	12
24	7/11/91	TOTAL	SANTIAGO IXCUINTLA, MEXICO	13
25	1/4/92	ANNULAR	OTTA ISLAND, TRUK	14
26	5/21/93	PARTIAL	PHOENIX, AZ USA
27	5/10/94	ANNULAR	LENEXA, KS USA	15
28	11/3/94	TOTAL	TACNA, PERU	16
29	4/29/95	ANNULAR	PUINAHUA, PERU	17
30	10/24/95	TOTAL	PINAHAT, INDIA	18
31	10/12/96	PARTIAL	LONDON, UK
32	3/9/97	TOTAL	DARHAN, MONGOLIA	19
33	2/26/98	TOTAL	WESTPUNKT, CURACAO	20
34	8/22/98	ANNULAR	JOHORE BARU, MALAYSIA	21
35	2/16/99	ANNULAR	PERTH, AUSTRALIA	22
36	8/11/99	TOTAL	BATMAN, TURKEY	23
37	7/31/00	PARTIAL	ANCHORAGE, AK USA
38	12/25/00	PARTIAL	HOUSTON, TX USA
39	6/21/01	TOTAL	LUSAKA, ZAMBIA	24
40	12/14/01	ANNULAR	PUNTA ARENAS, COSTA RICA	25
41	6/10/02	ANNULAR	TINIAN, MARIANAS ISLANDS	26
42	12/4/02	TOTAL	CHIBUTO, MOZAMBIQUE	27
43	5/31/03	ANNULAR	OLAFSFJORDUR, ICELAND	28
44	11/23/03	TOTAL	ANTARCTICA	29
45	4/8/05	ANNULAR	PENONEME, PANAMA	30
46	10/3/05	ANNULAR	ALGIERS, ALGERIA	31
47	3/29/06	TOTAL	JALU, LIBYA	32
48	9/22/06	ANNULAR	KOUROU, FRENCH GUIANA	33
49	8/1/08	TOTAL	DUNHUANG, CHINA	34
50	1/26/09	ANNULAR	KEELING ISLANDS	35
51	7/22/09	TOTAL	WUHAN, CHINA	36
52	1/15/10	ANNULAR	GULU, UGANDA	37
53	7/11/10	TOTAL	HIKUERU, FRENCH POLYNESIA	38
54	5/21/12	ANNULAR	TOKYO, JAPAN (& SPRINGDALE, UTAH)	39
55	11/14/12	TOTAL	MOUNT CARBINE, AUSTRALIA	40

 

FUTURE ADVENTURES WITH “RING OF FIRE EXPEDITIONS”

Please join us on another eclipse tour by monitoring this web site.  The following eclipses are on our event horizon.

Type	Date	Region of Visibility
Total	20-Mar-2015	Svaalbard
Total	9-Mar-2016	Indonesia/Pacific
Annular/Total	1-Sep-2016	Africa
Annular	26-Feb-2017	S.America/Africa
Total	21-Aug-2017	USA
Total	2-Jul-2019	S. America/S.Pacific
Annular/Total	26-Dec-2019	India/S.E.Asia
Annular	21-Jun-2020	Africa/Mideast/Asia
Total	14-Dec-2020	S.America
Annular	10-Jun-2021	Canada/Greenland
Total	4-Dec-2021	Antarctica
Annular/Total	20-Apr-2023	S.E.Asia
Annular	14-Oct-2023	N.America/S.America
Total	8-Apr-2024	USA/Mexico

We just arbitrarily stopped here, but we are planning beyond 2024!