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 From July 2023

In early July, after working on a habitat survey on some beautiful property near Dandridge, Tennessee, we came home to weather that was more tropical than temperate. The rain was good for gardens but terrible for astrophotography. I had just taken delivery of a six-inch astrograph, and I needed to check it out to see if the optics were okay.

Next I wanted to take a long exposure image. The weather gods were kind and a mild cold front came through on July 24th.

I took images on the nights of July 25th, 26th and 27th. My target was a small region of the Cygnus ionized hydrogen cloud call Simeis 57. It's about 4,600 light-years distant. The whole area, near the star Gamma Cygni, glows in the light of ionized hydrogen and oxygen.

I chose this area because I had seen images of it that suggested the shape of an owl to me. It looked like a fun first image for the new scope.

Everything worked remarkably well on the new setup. I already had the mounting and other imaging accessories like the camera and filter wheel. The counterweight is from another telescope.

The image of Simeis 57 above is only 1/5th the size of the original image. To the naked eye, only the bright star in the top left corner of the image is visible. And that star can only be seen by someone with keen vision from a site far away from city lights. Everything else is much fainter. The "owl" as shown would span almost two full Moons if you could see it.

The lounge chair in the image at right is one of the things I enjoy most about my astrophotography. After I polar align the scope, get the autoguiding started and enter my imaging plan into the scope's software, I sit down and relax.

Jupiter rises just around 1:00am at the beginning of the month. Look for it in Aries low above the East-Southeast horizon. You will get better telescopic views by viewing it just before dawn.  

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