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at Van Vleck, so I include both these viewings and the club's own 
meeting. 
    The cable company has a monthly 'Astronomy forum' show, which I 
thought was an internal production. It's in fact open to any one to 
sit in the audience and put questions to the stage. I'll include these 
shows, even tho the broadcast is sent out only within Staten Island. = 

Skywatching 
 ---------
    Some of the very darkest and clearest skies in recent memory stood 
over the City during January 2004, but they could not be exploited 
fully due to the bone-snapping frigid air. While transparency deepened 
to 5th magnitude away from Manhattan and the waterfront belts of the 
other boros! The fainter constellations, like Lynx, Monoceros, 
Eridanus, Pisces were discerned by NYSkiers from all over our turf. 
Manhattan transparency was a solid 4-1/2 magnitude, with textured 
deepsky objects.
    A blockbuster project was announced on January 5th: Let's go and 
replace the remaining cobrahead streetlights thruout New York City. 
    What? Is this more or Pazmino's pathetic poopoo?? 
    The City's Department of Design and Construction opened a compo to 
build, erm, star-friendly lamppoles not just in the showcase 
districts, but in all five boros. The contest is open to anyone in the 
outdoor lighting business. That INCLUDES darksky advocates and groups. 
    I can expect entries from NYC Events readers or their 
affiliations? Your pellugo is all atingle? Perhaps, just perhaps, in 
ten years -- not 30 or 50 -- the stars will twinkle into the eyes of 
Cityfolk walking by a streetlight devised by you.or your darksky 
group. 
    Finally, the City saw a return of solar halos and parhelia. Most 
were weak and dilated but a few were brilliant. In addition, a 
circumzenithal arc and upper tangential arc were noted on January 
17th. 
    February brings an other graze occultation, this time a northern 
limit for eta Leonis on February 6th. The listing for it above gives 
waypoints within the City, with a lateral error of a hundred meters. 
However, if you are within a kilometer or two of the limit, there 
should be good in/out events of the star behind the lunar mountains. 

Special Events 
 ------------
    Take the A train to City College (145th St, IND 8th Av) on Sunday 
8 February for the blowout showing of New York City science talent. 
That's the Science and Engineering Fair, featuring some 1,000 exhibits 
from all over the City. It's free starting at noon for public viewing. 
I'm a judge, with 400 other science and engineering mavens in the 
City, to assess the earth & space science projects on display. 
    If you hadn't seen the College for a decade or more, it'll knock 
your socks off! The place is really cleaned up nicely, with Great Hall 
fully restored to its mediaeval splendor. That's where the Fair is, so 
you get two spectacles at once. The hood around the campus is now a 
nabe, with star-friendly street lighting. The 'natives' rose up 
against their residences being lighted like a prison yard. It reminded 
them too much of that other era in the 1960s to 1980s. 
    On January 31 Exploratorium opens at the AMerican Museum of 
Natural History in its Gallery 3. Free after entering the Museum, it's 
a three-dozen set of experiments you can play with for understanding 
assorted principles of science, mostly physics. The show, based on 
those at San Francisco's Exploratorium, runs thru August 15th. 

New York 
 ------
    Guess what? The New York City subway token is NOT completely 
gone!! They are still accepted on the Roosevelt island Tramway. 
However, they are not SOLD there; yu must already have them in hand. 
The tramway turns in the collected tokens to the Transit Authority to 
get their $1.50 cash value. 
    There is a mass shuffle of transit routes starting on 22 
February! On that day all four tracks on Manhattan Bridge are placed 
in operation, so that trains from Brooklyn can be sent to BOTH 
Broadway and 6th Avenue lines. The lines most affected are the 6th 
Avenue, brighton, Broadway, Manhattan bg,  Montague Tn, Nassau St, Sea 
Beach, and West End. 
    From 1986 to 2001 only one pair of tracks, those on the north 
(east) side of the bridge were operating, because of reconstruction of 
the bridge, forcing all bridge trains to run only into 6th Avenue. 
    In July 2001 the Big Flip occurred when bridge rehab work changed 
sides. The north tracks were cut off and all traffic was sent to the 
south (west) tracks into Broadway, starving 6th Av of trains. 
    For the 63rd straight year the NYSkies turf (prolepticly, I mean) 
won the largest share of the Intel (ex Westinghouse) Science Talent 
Search semifinalists. Here's how we did, from the roster issued on 
2004 January 14: 
  NYSkies territory           Schools & states 
  -------------------         ----------------
    7 - Connecticut           23 - state of Maryland       
   32 - Metro North           20 - state of California
   77 - Long Island           19 - Stuyvesant H S, Manhattan 
    3 - New Jersey            13 - state of Texas

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