Eight, forever
Group size is an optical constant, not a growth lever. Dark adaptation, guide attention, and the particular silence of a small group under a big sky all break at nine. We'd rather add departures than seats.
About Aphelion
We are a company shaped like its subject.
Small. Dark. Quietly enormous. Aphelion exists to return people to the night sky — and to make sure there's still a night sky to return to.
The name
a·phe·li·on
/əˈfiːliən/ · noun · astronomy
The point in an orbit farthest from the sun. Every planet has one. Every comet swings out to its aphelion, hangs there for a long, quiet moment in the deepest dark it will ever know — and then begins the long fall back toward the light.
That's the trip we sell, in miniature. Go as far from the glare as the planet allows. Hang in the dark a while. Come back changed.
The story so far
Five years, four skies.
2019
The Paranal problem
Mireille Okafor, nine years into instrumentation work at the Paranal Observatory, keeps noticing the same thing: visiting friends cry at the sky, and her colleagues have stopped looking up. The best view in human history, wasted on people at work.
2021
Eight strangers in the Atacama
The first unofficial expedition — Mireille, mountain guide Dan Reyes, one borrowed 16-inch Dobsonian, and eight strangers from a stargazing forum. Three of them changed careers within a year. Aphelion Expeditions incorporates that December as a public benefit company.
2022
The grant fund
First profitable season. The founders commit 1% of all revenue — later restructured into Custodian dues — to dark-sky preservation grants. First grant: retrofitting 340 streetlights in a town bordering the NamibRand reserve.
2024
Four skies
Lofoten, NamibRand, and Haleakalā join the roster, each built the same way: local partners first, astronomy second, marketing a distant third. The waitlist crosses 2,000 names. We still refuse to raise group size past eight.
2026
Now
Twenty-two staff, eleven guide-astronomers, 1,100 alumni travelers, $214,000 granted. Still no investors, still no billboards — a company deliberately shaped like its subject: small, dark, and quietly enormous.
How we decide things
Three rules we won't break.
The locals lead
Every site operates with local partners who hold real equity in the operation — Sān astronomers in NamibRand, wayfinders in Hawaiʻi, fishing families in Lofoten. We are guests under other people's skies, and we price like we know it.
Preservation is the product
A dark-sky travel company that doesn't defend dark skies is strip-mining its own inventory. One percent of revenue, structurally committed, since before it was comfortable. The grant fund is not our charity arm. It's our supply chain.
The guides
The people pointing up.
Dr. Mireille Okafor
Co-founder · Chief Sky Officer
Ex-Paranal instrumentation. Can find the gegenschein faster than you can find your car keys.
Dan Reyes
Co-founder · Head of Expeditions
UIAGM mountain guide, 20 seasons. Believes every logistics problem is solvable with enough foam pads.
Ingrid Solheim
Lead Guide, Lofoten
Svolvær-born aurora chaser. Author of the layering doctrine our travelers quote like scripture.
Tomás Rivera
Lead Guide, Atacama
61 gegenschein sightings and counting. Keeps score, because somebody should.
Naledi Khumalo
Lead Guide, NamibRand
Works with Sān community astronomers to keep the oldest sky stories attached to the oldest skies.
Keahi Nakamura
Lead Guide, Haleakalā
Wayfinding practitioner. Teaches the sky as a map first, a spectacle second.
1,100+ alumni travelers
8 max group size, always
$214k in dark-sky grants
0 investors