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removed from the property. This admonition is a fallout from the 
ongoing revision of access to various lands across the country. 
    As NYC Events is circulated among astronomers all over the world 
(it's posted into several astronomy Internet newsgroups, for 
instance), operators of astronomy-related activities are sending in 
their programs and schedules. As long as they are within the commuting 
ring of New York, I can include them. 
    NYC Events will ALWAYS be incomplete, simply because there are 
astroevents out there I didn't learn about. NYC Events is also less 
than complete because I put in the major public events at which the 
sponsor has (I hope!) information about its other features. 
    The NYSkies calendar section and NYC Events now are essentially 
congruent. More over, many NYSkiers lack web service, while NYC Events 
is emailed to all NYSkiers. Print the calendar in landscape mode to 
avoid clipping off the far right days. 
    When a new event is noticed, or an existing has substantial 
change, in the calendar it is tagged with '(CLICK)'. That tells you 
there are details and a contact behind your mouse click. 
    The American Museum of Natural History extended indefinitely its 
SuperSaver ticket and the alternating Hayden Planetarium spaceshows. I 
no longer include these as 'events' being that they are, for the 
immediate future, permanent features of the Museum. 

Skywatching 
 ---------
    The miserable clouds and rain of summer broke in September. Yes, 
we still had the lousy weather, but there were frequent clear evenings 
tossed in for good starviewing. NYSkiers continue to inspect Mars and 
delighted to the still-large disc, polar caps, and maria. No large new 
dust storms erupted so far. 
    There were few organized Mars watches in September, but the planet 
was a favorite feature of the ongoing starviewings all over the 
NYSkies territory. About 2/3 into September several NYSkiers, almost 
simultaneously from various parts of the City, spotted Venus! She's 
still a tough target in bright twilight. Once found, she'll be your 
skymate for the rest of her synodic loop. She'll end that loop in June 
2004 with her crossing over the face of the Sun! Creeping into view by 
month end was Saturn, for those viewing into the midnight hours. 
    The Tribute in Light memorial beams shining thruout the night of 
September 11th to dawn on the 12th, were totally innocuous toward 
starviewing. As it turned ot, some parts of the City were clouded over 
anyway. The beams were visible from as far as 120 kilometers away and 
reached, based on altitude measurements in hand, as high as 25 
kilometers! 
    There was some public grumbling about the short time the beams 
were shining. They 'should' be lighted permanently. City officials 
explained that, like Memorial Day and Veterans Day, the anniversary of 
WTC is a one-day remembrance. Tribute of Light will, according to 
current plans, return on each future anniversary. 

Special Events 
 ------------
    The Museum reopened its Gem & Mineral Hall and Hall of Meteorites 
after a renovation on 20 September 2003. Ahnighito is still in place 
where it was, on stilts reaching to Manhattan bedrock, with its sister 
displays all redone and updated. Check out, also, the rehabbed 
adjacent Hall of Gems & Minerals! 
    The megaevent in October is the American Urban Star Fest in 
Central Park's Sheep Meadow. This is the nation's most festive and 
romantic of starparties, despite its setting in the middle of 
Manhattan. 
    Unlike conventional 'star parties', American Urban Star Fest is a 
public celebration of the starry skies, resulting from New York's 
ongoing, tho slow, progress toward the mitigation of luminous 
graffiti. This is accompanied by the crescendo of popular awareness 
that New York is the hub of the universe, a situation that requires it 
to have a clear prospect on the surrounding worlds and orbs. 
    This mindset may seem queerly preCopernican. It is, in a 
philosophical sense, not physical. Most folk here understand that the 
Earth, with the City, is one of the nine (not eight!) planets. Yet, by 
a survey made in the 1930s, before the Hubble expansion was widely 
appreciated and the cosmos was a geometric construct, the exact center 
of it all is under the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd 
Street. This is strictly no longer valid, due to the nonEuclid 
character of space and Einstein's mixing of time into it, but it's 
still cool to stand there and imagine that in any direction it's as 
far to the frontier of creation as in any other. 
    So, what better way to let the populance say, 'We are the world!' 
than a lazy lawn picnic under their own stars? And so, at sundown on 
Saturday 4 October 2003, several thousand cityfolk will (weather 
permitting) pour down from their residence towers, out of subway 
kiosks, off of buses, and troop into Sheep Meadow of Central Park. 
There they'll spread out their blankets; break out packed suppers; 
deploy chairs, binoculars, starcharts; wrap in sweaters or shawls. 
    And take in the cosmic view that belongs to New York as much as 
New York belongs to it. And, with clear skies, stars they will see! 
All of them to 4 or 4-1/2 magnitude, from the 'basin' of Central Park. 
They'll see Hercules, Cygnus, Pegasus, Aquarius, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, 
and many other groups. They'll study Mars, Uranus, Neptune, and a 8-

 Continued in next message.

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