We intentionally limit the number of guests on our tours to about thirty or less. This helps insure close, personal attention by Continental Capers personnel and our other escorts.

Guests of Continental Capers have the services of Marian Cohen, a Continental Capers trip coordinator and travel specialist, with over twenty-five years in the travel business. Ms. Cohen also holds bachelor and master degrees from the University of Michigan and Indiana University respectively. Her experience includes arranging and escorting unique adventure tours. She has also traveled to eight total eclipses of the Sun.

In addition, Continental Capers arranges for local, professional guides to accompany guests. Finally, all guests of Continental Capers have access to a professional scientist or naturalist traveling with the group.

Continental Capers uses the services of Dr. Howard L. Cohen to help arrange and escort many of its specialty tours. Dr. Cohen is an emeritus professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Florida where he was on the faculty for over thirty-five years. He is an accomplished public speaker. His “down-to-earth” presentations use lively computer displays, which he has perfected through years of teaching at the University.

Dr. Cohen became engrossed with astronomy as an amateur over fifty years ago. He subsequently studied astronomy, physics and math at the University of Michigan where he received his B.S. degree. Graduate work in astronomy at Indiana University led to Masters and Ph.D. degrees.

However, Dr. Cohen continues his interest in communicating his excitement of the heavens to others. He helped organize a small, local amateur group in the 1970s and is also a founding member and past vice president of the Alachua Astronomy Club, Inc. (AAC). He currently serves on the club's executive board.

As a teacher Professor Cohen has taught more than 15,000 students basic astronomy and science. He has also helped pioneer the use of multimedia for teaching astronomy at the University of Florida. Under a NASA grant during the 1990s Dr. Cohen prepared and taught workshops in Florida schools to introduce teachers to the basics of image processing.

For a while in the 1960's he was a visiting astronomer at Lowell Observatory doing photometric work on the Sun and binary stars. He was also active in their public outreach programs. A favorite activity was introducing visitors to Lowell's unique history and facilities.

Research interests have spanned a variety of projects including eclipsing binaries and star clusters, lunar and asteroid occultations, eclipses and calendars. During the 1980s Dr. Cohen was first to test a prototype of a new Air Force ground-based electro-optical deep-space surveillance system (GEODSS) for the detection of asteroids and comets.

During the late 1980s Dr. Cohen was also a technical consultant, speaker and regional sales manager for Meade Instruments, Inc., a leading manufacturer of astronomical telescopes for the serious amateur. He also arranged and presented dozens of Meade telescope training workshops for store personnel.

The "Great Seven-Eleven" Total Eclipse Totality Lasted Almost Seven Minutes (Baja Calif. Sur, 1991 July 11)

More recently, he helped the AAC conceptualize a series of large, sky murals for the lobby of a local movie theater owned by Eastern Federal Corp. In addition, he helped design an astronomical theme for a Tampa, Florida transportation plaza. In 1998, Dr. Cohen became a consultant to the Gainesville Art in Public Places Trust to help a Florida artist and the AAC design, build and erect a scale model of the solar system along a one-mile stretch of road in Gainesville.

Dr. Cohen has traveled to nine total and annual solar eclipses and helped organize and lead a successful Caribbean eclipse cruise tour in 1998, an exciting African Eclipse Sun Safari in 2001, a sensational Australian Eclipse Tour in 2002, the rare transit of Venus to Crete in 2004, eclipse tours to the South Pacific and Egypt, and more.

Dr. Cohen is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the International Planetarium Society, the International Dark Sky Association, and Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society.

« Go to Professor Cohen's Home Page for Additional Biographical Info and Pictures »