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 and Images From November 2024 In November we were visited by a Rufous Hummingbird. On the morning of November 9th, one appeared at the hummingbird feeder outside our sunroom. It was a gray morning with intermittent misting rain. I grabbed my bird lens and camera and positioned myself about 60 feet away, hoping it would continue to come to the feeder. It zipped back in and I spent some pleasant time taking images.
Rufous Hummingbirds breed in the northwest United States north to the south coast of Alaska. Some winter along the southeast coast of the United States and they do occasionally turn up in our area at feeders in the winter.
We immediately called Cyndi and asked her if she would like to band our hummingbird. Cyndi and her husband Steve were at our doorstep less than an hour later! Cyndi said that it's not unusual to have 15 or so records in a typical winter here. Our bird was actually around the beginning of the period in winter that she expects them. We were thrilled to have one at our feeder.
Sky Events for December 2024: The Geminid Meteor Shower peaks during the morning hours of December 14th. A waxing gibbous Moon just short of full will reduce the number of meteors visible. The Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere occurs on December 21st at 3:21am Central Standard Time. This is the shortest day and the longest night of the year for us. The earliest sunset occurs two weeks prior to this on December 7th. The latest sunrise occurs about two weeks after the solstice. Evening Sky: Venus shines brightly in the western sky after sunset this month. It is brighter than any other star-like object in the sky, so you shouldn't have a problem locating it. Start looking about 15 minutes after sunset. Mercury is in the morning sky from about December 18th through the end of the month. It reaches greatest elongation from the Sun on December 25th. Look for it about 30 to 40 minutes before sunrise. It helps to have a flat eastern horizon and binoculars to first find it, but it should become visible to the naked eye. Saturn is above the southern horizon at twilight at the beginning of the month, about 45 degrees above the horizon. The view is spectacular in just about any aperture telescope. It's best to view it in a telescope at twilight, as it sets by midnight.
There's a lot to see on Jupiter. Even with just a good pair of binoculars you can see Jupiter appears as a small disk rather than a star-like point. You can often see one or more of the four Galilean moons. One of Galileo's great discoveries was these four moons, though the names presently used (Io, Europa, Calisto and Ganymede) were suggested by his archrival Simon Marius. The movement of the moons is noticeable even over the course of one evening. A six-inch aperture telescope will show the Great Red Spot, a long-lasting, Earth-sized storm in Jupiter's clouds shown in the image at right, and some of the belts, though the belts have lower contrast visually than they appear in images. The planet rotates in just under 10 hours, so in a single night you can watch the Great Red Spot rotate from one side of the planet to the other. Mars rises about four hours after sunset at the beginning of the month. It's in Cancer, and you can see its position in the star chart below. Look for it below the bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini at the beginning of the month. The red planet is becoming quite bright as it approaches its January 16th opposition. It will show its color much more, looking like a red glowing coal against the black sky. It begins this month appearing 11.6 seconds of an arc in diameter and ends the month at 14.2 seconds - large enough to show some surface detail to a patient observer.
Constellations:
The views below show the sky looking east at 9:45pm CST on December 7th. 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 of Gemini, The Twins. Compare the colors of the bright stars Betelgeuse 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. Mars is in Cancer this month, and it should be bright and beautiful, like a glowing coal.Look due north above the North star to find the rather inconspicuous constellation of Cepheus. It looks like a small upside-down house with a very pointed roof. Cepheus is along the Milky Way and has a wealth of interesting nebulae and star clusters. One of these nebula is the Wizard Nebula shown above in a narrowband image.
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. Recommended: Sky & Telescope's Pocket Star Atlas is beautiful, compact star atlas. 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:
Recommended: The Frogs and Toads of North America, Lang Elliott, Houghton Mifflin Co.
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