WHAT'S WITH NYC EVENTS? 
 ---------------------
 John Pazmino
 NYSkies Astronomy Inc
 www.nyskies.org
 nyskies@nyskies.org
 2009 January 5 initial
 2009 September 20 current 

    Here I answer some inquiries about NYC Events, the monthly 
calendar of astronomy events. The questions are combined from 
inquiries NYSkies received during 2008.
    NYC Events is the definitive astronomy event calendar for really 
one reason. You. It is one of the services of NYSkies Astronomy Inc. 
The entries come from you, the reader, who embed NYC Events in your 
duty to the profession. 

    WHERE DOES NYSKIES LEARN ABOUT ALL THOSE INCREDIBLE ACTIVITIES IN 
NEW YORK? 
    By now, after about a decade of publication, astronomy and many 
cultural, centers MAKE SURE to let NYC Events know about their events. 
They realize that NYC Events, apart from being a free announcement 
service of NYSkies for the greater public, is the one and only 
comprehensive roster of astronomy-related activity in the United 
States. Besides letting readers know about their work, the entries 
become jewels in the showcase of astronomy for the City region.
    I personally know a few instances where a copy of NYC Events was 
included in a funding or support application because it showed 
evidence of the applicant's activity. 

    WHAT IS THE 'NEW YORK CITY REGION'?
    It's loosely defined as the commuting ring around the City. It 
takes in all of the City itself, all of Long Island, all contingent 
counties around Manhattan, and associated areas out to 100 kilometers 
from Empire State Building. 
    Within this region NYC Events captures just about all significant 
astronomy and space activity open to the public. Beyond this region 
NYC Events lists major national events, like conventions.

    HOW CAN I INFORM NYSKIES OF UPCOMING EVENTS? 
    If the event occurs before its target month, you can flag it for 
NYC Events in email or snailmail. For those within the instant month, 
after NYC Events issued, you may send it as a letter to the NYSkies 
yahoogroup. Instructions are at 'www.nyskies.org/yahoo.htm'. 
    Please deliberately tick off each of the seven (or eight) 'W's in 
the notice: Who, What, When, Where, Why, hoW and WoW. Manually add any 
W's missing from the original notice. Pay particular attention to 
contacts, price, and conditions. 
 

    SUPPOSE MY EVENT IS CANCELLED OR ALTERED? 
    Usually such changes come with short notice, so they can not be 
included in NYC Events. You should send a letter to the NYSkies 
yahoogroup about the changes. Failing that, you better already have 
correct and current contacts in the NYC Events entry so readers can 
inquire for last minute news regarding your event. 
    That's why NYC Events strives to give phone, website, email to the 
maximum degree practical. Please promote this feature by purposely 
including contact details inside your event notice. 

    HOW OFTEN MUST I UPDATE CONTACTS IN NYC EVENTS?
    Most orgs change crew annually, so a person now sitting as a 
contact may not sit next year. While just about all previous contacts 
are gracious to forward inquiries to the current contact, it's best to 
let the reader go directly to the correct and current contact.
    You may advise NYC Events of a contact change by specific notice 
or by calling attention to a new contact in an event notice.

    HOW ACCURATE IS NYC EVENTS? 
    Amazingly accurate, given the complexities of assembling notices 
coming from all quarters of our territory in all forms and detail. It 
does once in a while goof, like putting an event under the wrong date, 
mixing up the time order of entries under a date, misspelling a 
critical word. 
    You readers let me know about them! SImple errors are corrected in 
the archive edition of NYC Events. If you request one, you get a 
cleaned up version. 

    WHEN A NEW EVENT IS RECEIVED DURING A GIVEN MONTH, IS IT ADDED 
    INTO THAT MONTH'S NYC EVENTS? 
    No, it isn't.By the time we get news of a new event, NYC Events is 
already in circulation around the world, as fetched from our website. 
If we continually revised it during the month, there would be several 
incremental editions scattered across the seven seas, all claiming to 
the be 'official' version. 
    Once NYC Events is issued for a given month it stays fixed. New 
events we learn about are put into the NYSkies yahoogroup. That's why 
after I report on an activity, some of you come back to note it wasn't 
in NYC Events. It just was not known when that issue was compiled. 

    ARE PRIOR ISSUES OF NYC EVENTS AVAILABLE?
    Only the instant month's issue is on the website. It is replaced 
by the issue for the next month near the beginning of that month. I do 
keep on disc previous NYC Events for the past several years.
    Many readers copy off NYC Events and keep private archives. They 
are also at archive websites that capture content of the sci.astro.* 
newsgroups. They may capture the issues from the NYSkies website. 
    If you need a back issue, please request it from NYSkies. Note 
that it may be an amended version to remove typos and mistakes. 

    FOR A LONG WHILE, NYC EVENTS WAS SENT TO THE NEWSGROUPS IN SEVERAL 
    PIECES THAT HAD TO BE KNITTED BACK TOGETHER.
    When I began sending NYC Events to the newsgroups, my email 
service limited each letter to a certain maximum length, I think 100 
lines of text. I had to split NYC Events into smaller segments and 
send each one.
    Since late 2007 I was able to send NYC Events to the newsgroups in 
one piece with little trouble. You can always get NYC Events in one 
piece at the NYSkies website, where it is a lot easier and neater to 
print out. 

    NYC EVENTS SEEMS TO MISS MANY ASTRONOMY EVENTS. 
    It does partly by design. It misses out routine planetarium shows, 
permanent museum exhibits, courses and series requiring repeated 
attendance, children and juvenile activities. 
    NYC Events is read primarily by adults who can spare only specific 
times for their astronomy. Never the less, with the contacts for each 
event, you can ask about other potential activities. 

    WHY DOESN'T NYC EVENTS INCLUDE TELEVISION AND CINEMA SHOWS?
    The territory around New York City covers several broadcasting 
and cable service areas. A given show will be sent out on different 
days, hours, channel numbers from place to place within the City 
region. Same for cinemas, which can have different theaters and show 
times across the region. 
    For very special television or cinema shows in NYC Events I advise 
you to check local news channels for latest news. 
    Never the less, you are sincerely encouraged to note such shows 
directly in the NYSkies yahoogroup. Please make SURE you state for 
what town or service the information applies for.

    WHY DOESN'T NYC EVENTS LIST RAINDATES?
    Raindates are not stated for many events in a consistent or 
definite manner. I see 'raindate is next new moon' or 'in case of 
clouds, call for alternate date'. It's the prime date that really 
counts. The reader prepares for that one first, Only if the event is 
called off does he need further instruction from the event sponsor, 
including a raindate. 
    In New York, raindates are seldom provided because they don't 
work. The event crew MUST be on duty for BOTH dates. ONLY if the event 
convenes on the prime date is the crew released from the raindate. 
With the general busyness of astronomers in the City, putting aside 
two dates, one OR BOTH (if the raindate is itself rained out) of which 
could be released on short notice, is just too much of a burden. 

    WHY DOESN'T NYC EVENTS INCLUDE CELESTIAL EVENTS? 
    There are plenty of other sources for learning about predictable 
celestial events, such as magazines, almanacs, astronomy calendars, 
computer programs. Putting them in NYC Events merely wastes disc and 
paper space and adds fritter to each issue. 
    NYC Events does alert to special celestial activity like eclipses, 
major appulses and occultations, bright comets, daylight time, leap 
second alerts. In such cases the data are rectified for New York City. 

    WHY DOES NYC EVENTS CARRY SOME VERY TECHNICAL, ACADEMIC, SCHOLARLY 
    ASTRONOMY ACTIVITY? 
    NYC Events, while targeted for the home sector of the profession, 
is supported by astronomers of all levels. There are readers at 
colleges, observatories, societies, labs, corporations, astronomy 
clubs, planetaria, musea, as well as at home. 
    As long as the event is open to the public (many are referred to 
me as 'special for NYSkies') there are readers who take interest in 
it. Altho an event may at first seem 'over your head', it can be 
surprising how much a home astronomer can get from such a meeting. So, 
try one or two of those 'too technical' events. 

    WHY, OH, WHY DOES NYC EVENTS HAVE 'THOSE' ITEMS IN IT? 
    Wholly unlike the astronomy elsewhere, the profession in New York 
takes proactive effort to be part of its community. NYSkies supporters 
engage in many cultural, social, civic pursuits in addition to 'pure' 
astronomy of the sort displayed in the mainstream litterature for home 
astronomy. 
    Some complainants actually swear and promise that their own events 
calendars will never be polluted and infected by nonastronomy activity 
in their communities. The result of this, as you can well can 
appreciate, is to barricade astronomy from the circumstant town, like 
behind an iron curtain. If this policy ever was a viable scheme of 
carrying on a profession, it fell into the trash heap of history in 
the early 1990s. 
    It really works that the astronomer who positively engages with 
the surrounding world, in this case the City region, is genuinely a 
better astronomer. In reflection of that paradigma, NYC Events 
sprinkles a few cultural events in its listing. 

    HOW CAN I ZERO IN ON SPECIFIC ENTRIES IN NYC EVENTS? 
    With NYC Events as an electronic file, you can run it into a 
wordproc or view it at our website. Then do 'search' or 'find'. The 
computer will step thru NYC Events, stopping at each hit of your 
search. If you want events on Manhattan, the search parameter would be 
'- MH -', which is unique within the text of NYC Events. You get all 
the vents occurring on Manhattan. 
    Mind that I'm not completely consistent with abbreves. You may 
have to try variations of your search: 'Astro Assoc', 'Astro Assn', 
'AA', 'A A' and the like. 

    DO I HAVE TO PRINT THE WHOLE NYC EVENTS IN ONE GO? 
    In a wordproc or on the website, you may highlight the section, 
usually a range fo dates. In the printing panel be SURE to tick 
'selection', not 'all' or 'page'. You print out only the highlight 
part, which is typicly only a sheet or two of printout. 

    CAN I EXTRACT PARTS OF NYC EVENTS FOR MY OWN USE?
    Being that NYC Events is an computer file, it is easy to extract 
parts for local use. Your may need only activities in your home 
vicinity, free events, accessible by transit, independent of weather, 
only after work hours, and so on. 
    You may customize NYC Events providing that you insert near the 
top that the instant issue is an edited version and the full edition 
is at the NYSkies website. This is specially crucial if you distribute 
the custom version such as by a website or handout. 

    CAN NYC EVENTS PROVE AN EVENT TOOK PLACE? 
    No! NYC Events issues before its entries take place. Events can be 
cancelled, changed, shifted by their operators, sometimes without 
notice. To demonstrate that an event took place, you have to inquire 
at the event's operator or acquire first hand witness for it. 
    On one occasion recently, an astronomer needed an archive issue to 
show that a certain event occurred. I gave him the issue with a heavy 
warning. That's why in critical situations, like a long drive or ride, 
you should check with the contact for last minute advice. 
    Starviewing sessions require clear skies to let the stars shine 
thru. I tag all starviewing sessions with 'cancelled for clouds'. 

    IS NYC EVENTS ISSUED IN OTHER LANGUAGES? 
    NYC Events is only in English, a New York flavor of that language. 
Never the less, NYC Events in its original form is carried on websites 
of other languages! It's a bit weird to get a search hit on such a 
website. The text is jibberish but NYC Events is in the King's 
English. (Brooklynites will catch that one.) 
    Apparently there seems to be little trouble for overseas readers 
to understand NYC Events. By the way, English is so pervasive thruout 
the world that English magazines and books no longer routinely 
translate their content into other languages. 

    I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE DISCUSSION OF NEW YORK ASTRONOMY FOLLOWING 
    THE LISTING OF EVENTS!
    Thank you! This discourse is the only one-stop monthly summary of 
astronomy in New York! No other entity even tries to chronicle the 
astronomy news of the City like NYC Events. 
    This section also demonstrates the deep and tight interaction 
between the stars and the city, a feature of our profession not 
prevalent elsewhere. 

    DO YOU HAVE ANY DOWN FEELINGS WHEN COMPILING NYC EVENTS? 
    Yes, there is one enduring sad and disappointing aspect of 
compiling NYC Events. I see all the incredible astronomy and cultural 
activity that I have to pass up! Sometimes there are two good events 
that conflict and I have to pick only one. Others take place when I'm 
elsewise occupied. 

    ARE THERE 'NYC EVENTS' FOR OTHER REGIONS? 
    Incredibly, there seems to be no other comparable compendium of 
astronomy events for any other region of the country. Other lists on 
websites or paper are typicly haphazard, incomplete, ediurante. 
    I kind of assumed that NYC Events would ignite similar calendars 
elsewhere to promote astronomy. For what ever reason, this just never 
happened. The causal conclusion for a person seeking astronomy in the 
United States is that beyond the outer railheads of the City, there 
isn't much to find. This HAS to be wrong, no? 

Last update on 20 September 2009