The week of ALCON 2009 will offer as many activities as anyone may want to do. If you have always wanted to visit the New York Area, tours will be offered to take you to the most important sites and landmarks in New York City, such as Rockefeller Center, the NYC Theatre District, Ground Zero, and astronomical sites such as the Rose Center (Hayden Planetarium). There will also be tours of famous Long Island Beaches and Lighthouses, and there will be a visit and tasting tour of a famous Long Island (North Fork) winery. A tour will also be offered of the Brookhaven National Laboratories, where cutting edge physics is being done including work on the Hadron Collider. There will also be a tour of the Long Island Cradle of Aviation, which showcases the aircraft and spacecraft developed on Long Island by Grumman and other companies located here.

The main event, ALCON 2009, will include speakers on diverse astronomical subjects, and there will be a special schedule of Astrophotography talks. The Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers will also have a schedule of speakers on planetary science. The Star-B-que will take place at Custer Institute, which is a historic astronomical landmark on the North Fork of Long Island. Dinner will feature local culinary specialties, and there will be a special speaker followed by observing through instruments in the AOS, ASLI and Custer Institute Observatories located on the site of Custer Institute.

The ALCON 2009 Banquet will be held at Hofstra University, where a special Keynote Speaker and presentation will provide a fitting end to ALCON 2009 on the 400th Anniversary of Galileo's remarkable achievements.

A detailed schedule will be available on this page in March of 2009.