TOWTOVE

(Top Of the World Transit Of Venus Expedition)
Pages about the 2004 transit of Venus across the sun, as seen from Barrow, Alaska.

The Expedition:

• The Story - The story of TOWTOVE, the Top Of the World Transit Of Venus Expedition, as told by Jeff Medkeff.

• Scott's Barrow Blog - Scott's brief running account of the Barrow expedition's success as posted to the Alaskan-Astronomy Mailing List.

• Artifacts - the famous car rental agreement, and the critical ice and fog map used to predict observing conditions for the transit.

• The Photographs - The TOWTOVE photo archive, set up as follows:
  • The Storyboard - select photos from the expedition, captioned and explained.
  • Jeff's Shots - An image dump. No captions, no processing, and the panoramas haven't been stitched as yet.
  • Chris' Shots - Chris notes that currently, the shots of Venus in transit are works in progress. They were shot in RAW mode with a Nikon camera, and he's processing them for best effect. The shots included here are quick-and-dirty unprocessed conversions to jpeg.
  • Scott's Shots - Scott, our Expedition Blogger and Logistical Manager, contributed the shots he took on the trip.

History, Context, and Miscellany of TOWTOVE:

• The Predictions - Predictions generated for TOWTOVE by the USNO, along with local "up" circumstances, a solar ephemeris, and chromospheric information provided by Jeff Medkeff.

• Planning Correspondence - A selection of planning correspondence, mainly between the TOWTOVE Group of Four, that was exchanged prior to the trip.

• The T-Shirt - as executed by Douglas Girard. We also have Richard's conceptual montage, an early incarnation of the TOWTOVE T-shirt design.

• Barrow Climate:
  • These are external links
  • Barrow Cloudiness Data from the Western Regional Climate Center. These grim averages led the TOWTOVE group to assume that we would be chartering an aircraft to get above the clouds in order to see the sun, but as it happened, that was unnecessary.
  • Barrow WSO Airport from the Western Regional Climate Center
  • National Weather Service, Barrow

• Are you from Barrow? If so, e-mail me with any corrections or additional details these pages may need.

Additional pages about Barrow, Alaska:

• Outside Magazine's June 1996 article, If I Can Take It There, I Can Take It Anywhere. The teaser calls Barrow possibly "the worst place in the U. S. of A." I can assure you, it is far from the worst.

The photograph on this page was taken at the end of the transit of Venus by Scott Girard.