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!

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Notes and Images From January 2016

January was bookmarked by two images of the night sky, one begun on January 1st, and the other on January 31st.  Both explore the rich winter sky looking south, with its bright stars sprinkled around like diamonds.  Orion the hunter strides across the southern sky, accompanied by his two dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor.

It is to these constellations that we pointed our telescope.  The nights were very clear and cold.  Our field was silent, with just the occasional call of an owl to break the stillness.  As the telescope went through its imaging paces, I watched Jupiter rise each night, its normal cream-colored disc reddened by the atmosphere as it cleared our eastern tree line.  In Canis Major, about a fist's width to the left of brilliant blue-white Sirius, is an area of nebulosity sometimes called Thor's Helmet.    

In January's Natural Calendar we looked at a supernova remnant, the Crab Nebula.  Thor's Helmet is a kind of prequel to that story, a nebula surrounding a star that will probably explode as a supernova.  The nebula is located in the heart of the winter Milky Way, and dust and gas are visible throughout the image.  Just above the center of the image is the star that created the nebula, the Wolf-Rayet star WR7.  This star is about 16 times more massive than our Sun, and 280,000 times brighter!  The intense radiation from this brilliant star is responsible for the glowing nebula that surrounds it.  When WR7 ends its life as a supernova, it will contract to either a neutron star or a black hole, depending on how much mass it retains after the explosion.

Thor's Helmet is about 12 thousand light-years distant, and about 30 light-years in size. 
 

Orion stands above Canis Major this time of year in our southern sky.  Near the three prominent stars that make up Orion's belt are three fainter stars that mark his sword.  The center somewhat misty sword "star" is in fact the Orion Nebula, Messier 42.  The nebula is too large to fit within the imaging field of view of our 12.5 inch telescope, so the image at right is just part of the nebula.  You can compare this view with the wide-field image below to get a sense of perspective.

The Orion Nebula is about 1500 light-years distant, and the whole nebula spans about 24 light-years in diameter.  Based on that estimate of size, the field of view at right covers about 8 light-years on the diagonal. 

Immense clouds of hydrogen and oxygen span the image, looking like straggling storm clouds on a cold winter day.  But these clouds stretch for light-years! 

Within the nebula stars are in the process of forming.  The whole region is thought to be a stellar nursery.  The Hubble Telescope has revealed protoplanetary disks forming around some of the young stars.

Like most deep sky objects, the Orion Nebula is best seen on very clear, moonless nights, as high above the horizon as you can catch it.  Just about any telescope, or even a pair of binoculars, will give a pleasing view.  Visually in small instruments the nebula appears grayish-green.  This green hue comes from doubly ionized oxygen.  Large telescopes will show some of the deep red color from hydrogen alpha radiation, though it is nowhere near as obvious as in the image.  Deep wide field images of this area show that the Orion nebula is part of a much larger complex of nebulosity that extends throughout the constellation.

Jupiter rises about 8:18pm in Leo at the beginning of the month.  To get good telescopic views, wait until it is high in the sky.  The great planet transits around 2:36am.

Morning Sky:

Constellations:  The views below show the sky looking east at 9:30pm CST on February 15th.  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, is now prominent in the northeast.  All of the bright stars of Leo, the Lion, are visible now, including Denobola, the bright star at the tip of the Lion's tail.  Part of the constellation of Virgo is visible below Leo.  It's handy to know where Denebola is, because below it, if you imagine sliding down the Lion's tail, is the great Virgo cluster of galaxies.  Look to the right of Denebola to find bright Jupiter.  Left of Denebola, on a line towards the handle end of the "big dipper," you will see the faint star cluster Mellotte 111, in Coma Berenices.  With a telescope, you can use the stars in this cluster to star-hop to the wonderful edge-one galaxy NGC 4565.  The faint constellation of Crater has now cleared the horizon.