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.
Sky Events for March 2022
Daylight Savings Time
begins on Sunday, March 13th at 2:00a.m.
The Spring Equinox
for the Northern Hemisphere
is on March
20th at 11:33a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Crescent Venus June 28th, 2012 20-inch Newtonian Reflector and
Flea 3 camera.
Morning Sky:
Venus
is dazzling in the morning sky this month! At midmonth, it rises
about 2 hours and 20 minutes before sunrise in Capricornus.
Marsis to the right of Venus
at midmonth, and rises about 10 minutes after Venus. It also is in
Capricornus. The red planet is far away right now, and its tiny
disk reveals little detail in telescopic views.
Saturn
will join Venus and Mars to make a pretty trio towards the end of
the month. Look for it below Venus. On the 28th of the month, a
waning crescent Moon will appear below Saturn. A good time to see
this striking grouping will be about 45 minutes before sunrise.
Constellations:
The Crab Nebula, Messier 1, December 14, 2015, 12.5 Inch Newtonian
Reflector and SBIG ST2000 Camera
The views below show the sky looking east at 9:30 p.m. EDT on March 22nd. The first view
shows the sky with the constellation outlines and names depicted.
Star and planet names are in green. Constellation names are in blue.
The second view shows the same scene without labels.
The bright star Arcturus, in Bootes, the Herdsman, makes its
appearance this month in the early evening sky, a sure sign that Spring is here. Virgo clears the horizon this month
along with Corvus, the Crow. The area
of sky encompassing Leo, Virgo and Como Berenices marks the heart of the great Virgo cluster of galaxies.
In the early morning hours Virgo will have risen high enough in the sky to
search for the many bright galaxies that are in this region.
Messier 104,
in southern Virgo just above Corvus, is one of the easier galaxies to spot in
binoculars. Even so, you will need a dark and moonless night to be
successful.
Messier 1, The Crab Nebula, is high in the sky this month and can sometimes
be spotted in binoculars in a location away from city lights. In larger
telescopes you can visually make out the part of the nebula that appears
whitish in the above image. To me it looks to me like a giant rabbit grazing in
some cosmic field of grass. The faint red and blue tendrils are visible only
large telescopes in very dark skies.
The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a stellar explosion that was noted by
Chinese astronomers in the year 1054. The star collapsed to a rapidly
spinning neutron star, and pulsar. It spins at a rate of 30
revolutions per second. Distance to the nebula is 6,500 light-years
from Earth. For more on the crab nebula, including finder charts and a
great
interview with pulsar discoverer Jocelyn Bell Burnell, click
here.
The object is number one in 18th century French comet hunter Charles
Messier's catalog of objects which might be confused with comets. In
describing the appearance of the crab nebula, Messier said, "This nebula
had such a resemblance to a comet, in its form and brightness, that I
endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would not confuse these
same nebulae with comets just beginning to shine." Messier ending up
cataloging some of the most beautiful galaxies, nebulae and star clusters
in the sky.
March 22nd, 9:30pm EDT, Looking East
March 22nd, 9:30pm EDT, 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 March. Of course,
the planets do move slowly through the constellations, but with practice you
will learn to identify them from their appearance. In particular, learn
the brightest stars (Like Arcturus and Denebola in the above scene looking
east), 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 Corvus the Crow.
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. 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."
You may also want to try the very beautiful app
Sky Guide. I will
write more on this app soon, as I've really enjoyed using lately.
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:
Southern Leopard Frog
So far this year I've heard
Upland
Chorus Frogs, Spring Peepers,Southern Leopard Frogs,
Pickerel Frogs and American Toads. Pickerel
Frogs seem to be calling earlier in the year than they were in previous
decades. I would like to do a run through the TAMP data and get a plot of
the earliest dates each year. You have to be careful at times to separate
the occasional "croak" of a Southern Leopard Frog from the more drawn out
"Yeeowwww" of the Pickerel Frog. Pickerel Frogs often call from
beneath the water's surface, and you may hear them calling in the daytime
in subfreezing temperatures. In West Tennessee, TAMP volunteers will be listening for Crawfish Frogs
to give their loud snoring calls. Remember that on mild nights you may find frogs and toads out foraging that you
do not hear until later in the season. On warm days listen for early treefrogs, likeCope's Gray Treefrog,
and for early Eastern Cricket Frogs and
Southern Cricket Frogs.
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
