astropy v8.1 release plans updated

[Pey Lian Lim]

Dear maintainers,

Tom R, your esteemed release manager, as updated the dates for astropy v8.1 at https://github.com/astropy/astropy/wiki/Release-Calendar . To save you a click:

• v8.1 Feature Freeze (FF): 2026-11-20
• v8.1 Release Candidate (RC): 2026-11-27
• v8.1 Release: 2026-12-18

I have added these dates to the Astropy Project Google Calendar as well. If you want to be reminded of them from Google Calendar, you could ask to be "invited" to those "events."

If you have major features or API changes you want to get into v8.1, please get them in sooner than later, so downstream packages that test against the nightly dev wheels have a chance to catch up before RC happens.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you,

Pey-Lian