Continued from previous message.

    With the upsurge in public awareness of its stewardship of planet 
Earth, this year we got TWO separate festivals! The first is inside 
Grand Central Terminal on April 14-15 with the NYSkies booth. The 
other is an outdoor street party on April 21-22 next to the depot. 
    Both are free! That price includes sample food snacks, dance and 
acts, music, handouts, and midtown Manhattan all around you. 
    With this year being the Darwin year, anchored by the monster 
exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, many events relate 
to evolution. They are spread over much of the NYSkies turf, not just 
on Manhattan. These are particularly timely for the upswing in the 
debate about Bible-based creation in public schools. 
    Amateur Astronomer Association Inc sticks to its despotic ways, 
with no indication of reform. Thus, certain of its activities carry 
the risk of abuse and hostility to their visitors, as marked in the 
index and annotated in the listings. 
    On 2005 December 2 three AAA Board members, including president 
Michael O'Gara, displayed hostile behavior at its lecture at the 
American Museum of Natural History. They tried to harass a Museum 
visitor by posturing and gesturing! 
    Because there now seems to be more than just a 'risk' of abuse and 
hostility, NYC Events no longer lists AAA events at the Museum. These 
were so far this year their Friday lectures in Kaufmann Theater and 
their starviewing in the Planetarium's Monday shows. 
    Two bookfairs on Manhattan, on the same IRT subway line! Both 
start on Friday the 21st in armories!! One is the Carriage House fiar 
in the 69th Regiment Armory; the other is in the Park Avenue Armory. 
Both are founts of astronomy, and other special interst, material. 
Since they run for two ro three day,s stop at each!
    I included the show of 'Saga of Pale Male' on April 17th. He's the 
red-tail hawk that made home on top of Mary Tyler Moore's 5th Av house 
because many NYSkiers admire him and his family. The hawks are easiest 
viewed from inside Central Park next to 74th-75th St on Fifth Avenue. 
    Central Park's fabled bridges star in two independent events. A 
walking tour by the Urban Park rangers on April 8th, followed by a 
lecture at SIBL on the 18th. Central Parkk has the world's largest set 
of bridges in one location!!. 
    With the return of nighttime stargazing sessions, after 
hibernating during the winter, understand that even the lingering cold 
and wind are most merciless to the unprepared astronomer! This is 
specially true in a field with no shelter. 

Sky News
 ------
    Weather in March varied fro cool crisp star-filled nights to 
miserable cloudy nights. We had a small snowstorm on March 2nd, 
nothing big, just a dozen centimeters of accumulation. It didn't even 
impede the NYSkies Astronomy Seminar on that evening, we came to the 
meeting with snow on our shoes. 
    Saturn is in high south at night, to rule the evening sky all thru 
spring. His rings are slowly closing up, making him more 'classical' 
in appearance. 
    A half dozen NYSkiers flocked to Carl Schurz Park to watch the 
paenumbral lunar eclipse on March 14th. Thru passing clouds they saw 
a definite darker edge near mid eclipse. But it seemed a bit TOO dark 
and definite. 
    It usually happens that the umbra blooms a percent or two larger 
than calculated from geometry. In this eclipse, the umbra was just off 
of the Moon with only the deepest paenumbra on the disc. Could it be 
that the extra dark nibble around mid eclipse was the outer edge of 
the bloomed umbra? 
    April 2006 opens with a twilight occultation of the Pleiades on 
the 1st. In a dark sky this would be a stupendous spectacle. In the 
early brighter twilight you'll likely miss some of the stars, but will 
catch the ones later in darker twilight. You'll need a low horizon in 
the west and northwest for the later occultations, close to moonset. 
    We're starting to rev up for comet Schwassmann-Wachmann-3 
approaching Earth in May. It's still far too soon to make any credible 
forecast of its brightness and showiness. Please calm down a bit. OH? 

NYSkies
 -----
    Astronomers are exploiting NYSkies as a quick, handy, friendly,
and potent source of astronomy news relating to the City. And there is
LOTS of astronomy stuff going on around New York! Since it revived on
28 September 2001 (it was interrupted by World Trade Center) NYSkies
became the definitive forum and public record for matters bearing on
home astronomy in and around New York.
    Joining NYSkies is easy. Send an empty email to this Yahoogroup
maillist at 'nysky-subscribe{at}yahoogroups.com'. Its posts are sent to
you in your email and you post to it by email. It's that simple!
    Or you may go to 'groups.yahoo.com/group/nysky'. If you are
already signed up with Yahoo, you go and sign in and then 'join'
NYSkies. If not, you have to go thru a silly 'registration' that's a
one shot chore, valid for all groups you may eventually join. The
files area of NYSkies are accessible only thru the website.

[end of part 2 of 2]

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