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 2022
A few days before Thanksgiving, a cold front brought clear skies to
Lookout Mountain for several nights. In between chores to get ready for
the holiday I set up my little astrograph and captured starlight two
nights before Thanksgiving and one night after. I used a couple more
nights when it was cloudy to take calibration images. My destination was a
faint nebula in Cepheus. Its Sharpless catalog number is Sh2-142, but
among friends it's known as "The Wizard Nebula".
NGC 7380, The
Wizard Nebula, November 17th, 18th, 20th, 21st and 28th, FRA400
astrograph and ZWO
ASI2600 camera. Total Exposure Time 15.5 hours
These late November nights the wizard sits high above the North Star at
dusk. It's getting late in the season to photograph the nebula, as you
only get to capture about half of its track across the autumn sky. At the
telescope the cold nights were still and quiet, with only the occasional
"Hoo-awww" of a Barred Owl or the snort of a deer to break the silence. In
the scene above, the wizard seems to be casting a spell, perhaps to ward
off that sinister-looking dark creature with the bright eyes at top
center.
The same view
as above but with the stars removed and the background brightened.
The Wizard Nebula is about 8,000 light-years away and about 13 light-years in
diameter. In the narrowband image above ionized hydrogen is mapped to the
green channel, ionized sulfur is mapped to the red channel and ionized
oxygen is mapped to the blue channel. This is the standard "Hubble
Palette" .
The nebula is part of a region of extensive nebulosity and dust. The image
at right has the same field of view as the top image. The stars have been
removed and the background nebulosity has been brightened to make it more
visible. Nebulosity
covers all parts of the frame.
The Wizard Nebula surrounds the open star
cluster NGC 7380, which was discovered in 1787 by Caroline Herschel. The
nebula itself is quite faint, but is said to be visible with a large
telescope and an OIII filter. The diameter of the brightest part is about
the same as the full Moon.
Sky Events for December 2022
The Geminid Meteor Shower peaks in the morning hours of December
14th. You may want to start observing in the evening hours of December
13th, as a waning gibbous Moon rises around 9:30pm. The meteors appear to
radiate outward from a point near the bright star Castor in Gemini. See
the star chart below. A lounge chair and a sleeping bag, and possibly a
hot beverage, will make you forget about the cold.
The December Solstice, marking the beginning of winter in the Northern
Hemisphere, occurs at 4:48pm EST on December 21st.
Morning Sky:
See above for details on the
Geminid Meteor Shower on December
13th and 14th.
Evening Sky:
Mars, June 11th, 2016. 20" Newtonian Reflector and ZWO ASI
120MMS camera.
Lots going on this month! Look for Saturn early in the evening on
December 1st, low in the southwest in Capricornus. Later that
evening Jupiter and the waxing gibbous Moon will set side by side.
Also, Earth has its closest approach to Mars
on this date. On December 7th Mars and the Moon will rise
together, and later in the evening Mars will appear to skim the
limb of the Moon, approaching to within a few minutes of an arc.
This is a great time to get out your telescope, and a great time
to start observing Mars! The red planet will be large enough to
show some details to patient observers using small telescopes. You
have to wait till the atmosphere steadies to see the low-contrast
surface details. Current maps are based on Schiaparelli's maps of
Mars in the 19th century. In his nomenclature he used the names of
ancient lands on Earth, so if some of the names seem vaguely
familiar, that's the reason. Of course, the names have been
modified to reflect the current naming conventions, but the old
romantic names are still there in part. Some were amazingly apt.
Schiaparelli saw a whitish spot during certain Martian seasons
that he suspected was snow or clouds over a mountain. He named it
"Nix Olympica" (the snows of Olympus). Modern day space probes
found there the volcano now named Olympus Mons, which is tied for the
highest mountain in the solar system!
I was once looking at an small dark spot on Mars named Nodus
Alcionius. When I looked up the nomenclature, it led me to the
Ovid's tale of Alcyone and Ceyx, then on to kingfishers and the
origin of the species name on our Belted Kingfisher, Ceryle
alcyon. I've never looked at a kingfisher in flight the same way
since.
Finally, there is a really wonderful documentary out now
on the Mars
rover Opportunity. It's on Amazon Prime Video. Called "Goodnight,
Oppy" it traces the explorations of the rover through the eyes of
those whose dreams it carried.
On December 24th look for a pretty grouping of Mercury and Venus low in the
western sky after sunset, accompanied by a thin crescent Moon. The
three will form an isosceles triangle, with Mercury the highest
above the horizon.
Constellations:
The Orion Nebula, November 18th, 19th and 20th, 2014.
The views below show the sky looking east at 10:15pm 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, 10:15pm EST, Looking East
December 15th, 10:15pm 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 10:15 EST, you can stay up till 12:15am 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. I 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 I'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.
Though not as data intensive as Sky Safari, Sky Guide goes all out
to show the sheer beauty of the night sky.
Great for locating the planets.
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
