The
purpose of this feature is to give scout leaders, educators and naturalists an
idea of some of the natural events coming up each month. We will try to
cover a variety of natural events ranging from sky events to calling periods of
amphibians, bird and mammal watching tips, prominent wildflowers and
anything else that comes to mind. We will also note prominent
constellations appearing over the eastern horizon at mid-evening each month for
our area for those who would like to learn the constellations. If you have
suggestions for other types of natural information you would like to see added
to this calendar, let us know!
Though we link book references to nationwide sources, we encourage you to
support your local book store whenever possible.
Notes From December 2021
I arose early on the morning of December 6th to look for Comet Leonard in
the predawn skies with my
8x42 binoculars. While not nearly as bright as
Comet Neowise last year, it
was still pretty easy to see, with a small one-degree tail that was
visible with averted vision. Bad weather kept interfering with my attempts
to photograph it, but I thought I might have a chance on the morning of
December 9th. Alas, clouds snuck in before sunrise and I hauled my
equipment back inside feeling somewhat cheated. Right as I reached the
front door steps I heard a Great Horned Owl calling close to the house,
which helped raise my spirits a bit.
An hour later, in my pajamas and padding towards the kitchen for
breakfast, I saw the white living room window curtains glowing a bright
orange! I opened the front door to see the whole eastern sky looking like
it was on fire. I pulled a winter coat over my pajamas and quickly walked
out to the pond next to my house. Perspective is a funny thing. Those same
comet-stealing clouds I'd been grumbling about earlier had delivered an
amazing sunrise.
Sunrise, December 9th, 7:30am
The light changed very quickly as I stood there taking pictures. The image
below was taken exactly three minutes after the one above. And then, just
as quickly, the light show drew to a close.
Sunrise, December 9th, 7:33am
Sky Events for January 2022
The Quadrantid Meteor Shower
peaks in the early morning hours of
January 4th. Look to the Northeast below the handle of the "Big Dipper".
Evening Sky:
Crescent Venus June 28th, 2012 20-inch Newtonian Reflector and
Flea 3 camera.
Venus
appears very low in the western sky after sunset at the beginning of
the month, and will be visible low in the eastern sky before
sunrise at month's end. You will want a very flat western horizon on
January 1st to see it. Begin looking about 15 minutes after sunset
with binoculars. It's passing between Earth and the Sun, so it will appear as a
tiny thin crescent in good quality binoculars. A bright
background sky actually helps see the crescent form. But please, for
safety's sake, wait till the sun sets to begin scanning. You'll have
another chance to see the crescent in the dawn sky at the end
of the month.
Mercury
should be about 8 degrees to the left and above Venus on January
1st. Look for
Saturn
about 12 degrees above and to the left of Mercury as the sky gets
darker.
Unlike Venus, which will be soon be lost in the twilight glow,
Mercury will be gaining elevation above the horizon each day till
the middle of the month. Saturn and Mercury will appear to approach each other, reaching their
closest distance on January 12th. On that date, look for Saturn
little over 3 degrees above and to the left of Mercury. Both
planets are in the constellation Capricornus. If you steady your
binoculars you can see the oval shape of Saturn and its rings.
Look for
Jupiter
about 30 degrees above the southwestern horizon at dusk on January 1st. It's in
Aquarius this month. Jupiter's dusky belts change from night to night.
Since the planet takes less than ten hours to rotate, with a
telescope you can watch details move across the disk during an
evening. In binoculars it will appear as a tiny disk, and often
you can see several of the Galilean moons.
Morning Sky:
Marsis about
10 degrees to the right of Venus at the end of the month in the
eastern sky before sunrise. Look for it just above the "Teapot" in
Sagittarius. The red planet is far away right now, and its tiny
disk reveals little detail in telescopic views.
Constellations:
Messier 81, April 18th and 20th, 2020, 12.5 Inch Newtonian
Reflector and ZWO ASI2600MM Camera
The views below
show the sky looking east at 10:30pm EST on January 7th. The first view
shows the sky with the constellations outlined and names depicted. Star
and planet names are in green. Constellation names are in blue. The
second view shows the same scene without labels.
Ursa Major, the Great Bear, has now cleared the horizon in the
northeast. In the nose of the bear the bright galaxies Messier 81
and Messier 82 are visible as small faint glows in binoculars. The
bright stars of Leo the Lion are visible now. Hydra, the Water
Serpent, rears its head menacingly. Hydra's brightest star Alphard
is known as "The Solitary One" because of its somewhat isolated
location from other bright stars. Canes Venatici, the Hunting
Dogs, make their appearance just above the northeast horizon. Among
the fainter constellations in the east are Leo Minor, the small
Lion, Cancer, the Crab, and Sextans, the Sextant.
January 7th, 10:30pm EST, Looking East
January 7th, 10:30pm EST, Looking East
On Learning the
Constellations:
We advise learning a few constellations each month, and then following
them through the seasons. Once you associate a particular constellation
coming over the eastern horizon at a certain time of year, you may start
thinking about it like an old friend, looking forward to its arrival each
season. The stars in the evening scene above, for instance, will always
be in the same place relative to the horizon at the same time and date
each January. In particular, learn the brightest stars (like Regulus and
Procyon in the above scene), for they will guide you to the fainter
stars. Once you can locate the more prominent constellations, you can
"branch out" to other constellations around them. It may take you a
little while to get a sense of scale, to translate what you see on the
computer screen or what you see on the page of a book to what you see in
the sky. Look for patterns, like the stars of Leo.
The earth's
rotation causes the constellations to appear to move across the sky just
as the sun and the moon appear to do. If you go outside earlier than the
time shown on the charts, the constellations will be lower to the eastern
horizon. If you observe later, they will have climbed higher.
As each season
progresses, the earth's motion around the sun causes the constellations to
appear a little farther towards the west each night for any given time of
night. If you want to see where the constellations in the above figures
will be on February 7th at 10:30pm EST, you can stay up till 12:30am EST
on the January 8th and get a preview. The westward motion of the
constellations is equivalent to two hours per month.
A good book to learn the constellations is
Patterns in the Sky, by Hewitt-White.
For sky watching tips, an inexpensive good guide is
Secrets of Stargazing, by Becky Ramotowski.
A good general reference book on astronomy is the Peterson
Field Guide,
A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, by Pasachoff. The book retails for around $14.00.
The Virtual
Moon Atlas is a terrific way to learn the
surface features of the Moon. And it's free software. You can
download the Virtual Moon Atlas here.
Apps:
The Sky Safari 6 basic version is free and a great aid for
the beginning stargazer. We really love the
Sky Safari 6 Pro. Both are available for iOS and
Android operating systems. There are three versions. The Pro is
simply the best astronomy app we've ever seen.
The description of the Pro version reads, "includes over 100 million stars, 3 million galaxies
down to 18th magnitude, and 750,000 solar system objects; including every comet
and asteroid ever discovered."
A
nother
great app is the Photographer's
Ephemeris. Great for finding sunrise, moonrise, sunset and
moonset times and the precise place on the horizon that the event will
occur. Invaluable not only for planning photographs, but also nice
to plan an outing to watch the full moon rise. Available for both
androids and iOS operating systems.
Amphibians:
Spring Peeper
A lot of things happen with amphibians in January. To see them,
though, you have to be out in the sort of weather that makes most people
stay indoors. The trick is to go out on mild (50 degrees Fahrenheit or
warmer) rainy nights. For safety, it is important that you have another
person with you to watch for traffic as you slowly drive the back roads,
looking for things that cross the road in front of you. Make frequent
stops to listen for calling frogs. In January, both
Spring Peepers
and Upland Chorus
Frogs are not uncommon, and
Wood Frogs have their
short-lived breeding choruses in woodland ponds.
Southern
Leopard Frogs are also sometimes calling on mild January nights.
We
have seen Northern
Cricket Frogs, Green
Frogs, American
Bullfrogs and
American Toads foraging in January. Just about anything is
possible. On January 22, 1999, we found an
Eastern Spadefoot
out in the stormy weather. That same day a tornado ripped through
Clarksville, Tennessee, doing much damage to the Austin Peay campus.
January is an exciting time of year to look for herps!
Streamside Salamander larvae beneath a rock
This is also the time to look for Tiger Salamander and Streamside
Salamander egg masses. Tiger Salamanders like to deposit their egg masses
on the vegetation in shallow water in small ponds and wetlands.
Streamside Salamanders deposit their egg masses on the bottoms of rocks in
streams. If you are looking for salamanders, always remember to carefully
replace any stones you pick up exactly where you found them. Recommended: The Frogs and Toads of North America,
Lang Elliott, Houghton Mifflin Co.
Nature Notes Archives: Nature Notes
was a page we published in 2001 and 2002 containing our observations about
everything from the northern lights display of November 2001 to frog and
salamander egg masses.
Night scenes prepared with The
Sky Professional from Software Bisque
