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 November 2021
Stephan's Quintet,
October 10th and November 7th, 8th and 9th, 12.5 inch
Newtonian Reflector and ZWO ASI2600 camera, Total exposure time 9
hours.
The constellation of Pegasus, the winged horse, flies high across the
fall night sky and brings some fascination galaxies into view.
On the evening of September 27, 1877, French astronomer Edouard Stephan
discovered five faint galaxies that were within a circle less than 1/16th
of a degree in diameter. The group became known as Stephan's Quintet and
was the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. A sixth fainter member
of the cluster, unseen by Stephan, is NGC 7320C, seen in the upper left
hand corner of the image. The image was made from data gathered on four
nights. Two of the nights the observatory was operated remotely from
Knoxville and Nashville.
NGC 7320, which appears bluish in the image at right, is not a physical
member of the cluster and is in the foreground, about 40 million
light-years distant. The Hubble Telescope can actually resolve some of its
stars. The other members of the cluster are all around 290 million
light-years away and are gravitationally interacting. Tidal tales of gas
and stars trail from some of the galaxies.
Visually, the little cluster is something of a challenge in small
telescopes. If you are under very dark skies you may be able to detect the
quintet as a faint blur with a 6 inch telescope, but will not be able to
see the individual members. A 10 inch telescope will reveal four of the
members, but it takes a 12 inch telescope to reveal all five. My most
memorable view of the quintet came from an Arizona campground at 8,000
feet elevation. I was using a 20 inch Newtonian telescope. I saw not only the five members of the quintet, but also
NGC 7320C, the galaxy in the upper left hand corner of the image. On that
night the Milky Way cast a shadow on the white trailer that was used to
carry the scope.
A
Single Frame from "It's a Wonderful Life" (right) compared with a
cropped version of my image rotated 90 degrees (left).
Most people have seen this little group of galaxies but don't realize it. If
you've ever watched the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" you have seen
Stephan's Quintet. Director Robert Capra and Edward Hubble were friends and the
Mount Wilson Observatory was less than 20 miles as the crow flies from
Hollywood. Given that it's not too surprising that Capra included the
quintet in his movie.
The movie opens with the iconic snow scene in the fictional
town of Bedford Falls. The scene fades to the image of the
quintet shown at far right, and the galaxies flash as a discussion ensues
among the angels. At right is a comparison between my image rotated 90
degrees and resized and a screen shot from the movie. The filming took
place on the RKO Encino Ranch north of Los Angeles. The snow scenes were
filmed in 90 degree heat, but hey, this is Hollywood, so that was just an
inconvenience. Falling snow was created using a mixture of foamite, a
fire-fighting chemical, sugar, soap flakes and water and pumped through a
wind machine. Almost 3,000 tons of ice shavings were used. The head of the
special effects team, Russell Sherman, was awarded a Technical Achievement
Oscar in 1949 for his work on the film. Other bits of trivia about
the film can be found here.
Most of the star-like objects you see in the image above are foreground
stars in our Milky Way galaxy. As I said above, NGC 7320 (bluish) is about
40 million light-years away, and the other galaxies are around 290
million light-years distant. I used an image of the quintet I took in 2015
to make a 3d version of the quintet that gives a little more of a feel for
the relative distances. It's shown below.
To view the 3D
image, simply place your computer screen at normal reading distance, then relax
your eyes so that you're looking "through" your screen into the distance.
Pretend your listening to a particularly boring speaker. When you do that,
a third image will come into view between the original two images. Relax
your eyes a little more, and the third image becomes crisp and in 3D. It
may take a little practice to adjust your eyes. If you use reading
glasses, keep them on to do this. You may have to move your head back slightly
to achieve sharp focus, or tilt your head up slightly if you are wearing
progressive lens glasses.
A 3D version of the
Quintet
You can also download a Leaps bookmark with this 3D Quintet by right-clicking
here.
Select "Save Target As" and save it to your hard drive. We would recommend
using your best color printer settings. It
looks best when printed on photo paper, but it will also work on
regular card stock. Printing at 100% will insure that the spacing between
the two images of the quintet will remain around 2.2 inches, which seems to work
well for me.
Sky Events for December 2021
The Winter Solstice
for the Northern Hemisphere
is on December 21st at 10:59am EST, marking the beginning of winter.
A new comet,
Comet Leonard, will be moving through the early morning sky during the
first part of December! Visit the Sky and Telescope site
here for details.
The
Geminid Meteor Shower
peaks in the morning hours of December 14th. Unfortunately, a waning
gibbous Moon will interfere with observing faint meteors until it sets
around 3:00am local time.
Evening Sky:
Saturn, Tethys and Dione, June 11th, 2016. 12.5 inch Newtonian Reflector and
ZWO camera.
Venus
is the brightest star-like object in the western sky after sunset, and
sets about one and 3/4 hours after sunset at the beginning of
the month. Look for a pretty pairing with the crescent Moon on
December 6th. As the month goes on, watch as Venus sets closer and
closer to sunset and use a good pair of binoculars to watch its
crescent get thinner and larger.
Look for
Jupiter
about 40 degrees above the horizon at dusk at the
beginning of the month. It's in Capricornus this month. Jupiter's dusky belts change from night to night.
Since the planet takes less than ten hours to rotate, you can
watch details move across the disk during an evening. It's always fun to watch the dance of the four Galilean
moons!
Saturn
is below and to the right of Jupiter in Capricornus.
This is a great opportunity to see Saturn.
Even in good binoculars the tiny oval shape of the planet and
rings can be seen.
If you've never seen Saturn, it's simply spectacular in just about any
size telescope.
In fact, even a good quality 60mm refractor will give a
better view of the ringed planet than Galileo was ever able to see. Saturn
was a puzzle to him. In his low-resolution telescope the planet appeared as three separate
discs - one large disc with a smaller disc on each side of it. A few
years later, he returned to look at the planet when the rings presented
edge-on. His two attendant discs had disappeared! He never solved the
riddle. He would have loved to
see the view available to just about any amateur astronomer today.
Morning Sky:
Mercury
makes an appearance in the evening sky at the end of the month.
Look for it about 5 degrees to the left of Venus on December 30th.
Wait about 30 minutes after sunset. A flat horizon and a pair of
binoculars will help spot it.
Constellations:
The Orion Nebula,
Messier 42, January 2008, Televue 85mm Apochromatic Refractor and
SBIG ST-2000XCM CCD Camera
The views below show the sky looking east at 10:00pm EST on December 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.
Look for the bright stars
Castor
and
Pollux in the constellation ofGemini,
The Twins.
Compare the colors
of the bright starsBetelgeuse and Rigel
in Orion.
Betelgeuse is a red giant and Rigel is a very hot, blue-white supergiant. If you have a
telescope or binoculars, look at the center of the three "sword" stars below Orion's belt.
There you will find the
Orion Nebula,
M42, one of the most magnificent emission
nebulas in the sky. The red glow of hydrogen alpha light is visible only
in very large telescopes and the nebula appears as a small greenish glow in small
telescopes. Crouching beneath the feet of Orion, is
Lepus, the
Hare.
Sirius,
the
brightest star in the sky, shines below Orion.
Sirius is in
Canis Major, the Great Dog, and for that reason is known as the Dog Star. In the late summer, Sirius
rises at the same time as the Sun. Because of this, the late summer days
are known as the "dog days." The faint constellation
Monoceros, the Unicorn, follows Orion over the eastern horizon.
Low in the eastern sky below Gemini is
Canis Minor,
with its bright star
Procyon. Procyon means, "before the dog," and refers to the fact
that Procyon rises just before the Dog Star, Sirius. Look below
Gemini
and see if you can spot the faint glow of
M44, the "Beehive Cluster."
This cluster is located in
Cancer, the Crab.
December 15th, 10:00pm EST, Looking East
December 15th, 10:00pm 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 December. 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 Sirius 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 three stars in a line in Orion's belt.
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
January 15th at 10:00 EST, you can stay up till 12:00am EST on the December 15th 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:
Upland Chorus Frog
December really marks the beginning of the breeding season for
Tennessee frogs and toads. We have had breeding choruses of
Upland Chorus Frogs as early as
December 4th. Breeding even before Wood Frogs, these irrepressible
denizens of flooded winter fields and other wet areas will call
throughout the cold winter months. Listen for their
call, which sounds like someone
dragging their thumb across the teeth of a plastic comb, on mild wet
winter evenings. Listen also for
Southern Leopard Frogs.
We hear them throughout the fall. Many other Tennessee frogs and
toads can be seen on mild December nights, but most are silent.
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
