Above: New York State on (2024) June 21, the first day of summer, as seen from NASA’s Terra satellite. Credits: NASA
A couple of astronomy-related and highly educational items for your consideration.
Empire Space (And Solar System Ambassador List)
New Yorkers – go directly to empirespace.org and come back after.
I was really happy to find out that this organization exists. From the website:
"Empire Space is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to comprehensively analyzing, supporting, and promoting the entire New York space sector, with the aim of fostering economic growth, promoting research and development, and increasing academic and commercial opportunities in the space sector for New Yorkers of all backgrounds. Empire Space achieves these objectives by conducting thorough research and analysis, networking between various stakeholders to promote sector synergies, and engaging the everyday public."
from empirespace.org
First contact came from my being emailed through the Solar System Ambassador (SSA) website about their inaugural "Space Day New York," held on 2023 May 25. Current version of their website now includes links to all of the NY-based SSAs (who might still be recovering from the flurry of Eclipse 2024 lectures, but I did manage one Perseid-centric lecture myself last month at Parma Public Library).
CNYO-Assisted Perseid Explainer On DOGOnews
In the you never know when it might come in handy department: A google alert announced that "CNYO" had appeared somewhere on the internet recently. As it isn't the most common combination, a check of the associated link led me to Kavi Dolasia's article "Perseid Meteor Showers Promise A Dazzling Show This Year" at dogonews.com (local PDF).
"Started as a current events supplement for a 3rd Grader, DOGO has since grown into the leading global literacy platform used by millions of students and English as a Second Language (ESL) learners." It's mission: "To satisfy the innate curiosity of every learner through interesting, engaging, and interactive content that makes learning fun and exciting."
from dogonews.com
This is awesome and, with two in the house eventually doing that "3rd grade and beyond" thing, was delighted that CNYO was able to make a small contribution to something recent after all this (official) time off (original CNYO post here).
Cloudsonian Backup (Stereo?)
And finally, a glimmer of hope for those wanting to try it and are living in an area with recently disgruntled satellite TV subscribers.
I made mention in the Cloudsonian post to scour for DIRECTV/DishTV/HughesNet (if you can find'em)/etc. dishes as you're out and about town. This second dish was dropped at the curb by our new next-door neighbors, then Theodore and I saw another one at the curb while driving to Wegmans on a recent Sunday morning. Honest to goodness, they're out there and are likely good enough to play with. If they can survive outside for +5 years in WNY, I don't know what, short of a big hammer, it would take to make'em not useful for some simple radio astronomy.