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!

Note: You can click on the hyperlinks to learn more about some of the featured items.  To return to the Calendar, hit the "back" button on your browser, NOT the "back" button on the web page.  All charts are available in a "printer friendly" mode, with black stars on a white background.  Left clicking on each chart will take you to a printable black and white image.  Please note that images on these pages are meant to be displayed at 100%.  If your browser zooms into a higher magnification than that, the images may lose quality.  The Mozilla Firefox browser is highly recommended.

Though we link book references to nationwide sources, we encourage you to support your local book store whenever possible.

Notes and Images From August 2017

But many of those who made the pilgrimage to the path of totality were rewarded with beautiful and haunting views of the eclipse.  Nearing the path of totality that morning, the traffic rapidly increased.  Out-of-state license plates abounded, and it seemed every large parking lot was crowded with people setting up canopies and chairs. 

Seeking a less crowded place to view the eclipse, we drove to Chickamauga Wildlife Management Area, north and east of Dayton, Tennessee.  There we set up my old 6-inch reflecting telescope I built in high school. 

Actually, there are very few parts on the 6-inch reflector that date back to when I built it.  But the 6-inch primary mirror, ground and polished by hand one long winter in the basement of our house in Knoxville, is the same.  And the mirror of a reflecting telescope is its soul. Piggy-backed on top of the 6-inch scope was my small Televue 85 refractor, which was coupled to a camera for imaging the eclipse.  I had made some test images in the weeks before the eclipse, but there are so many things that can go wrong in the brief 2-1/2 minute length of totality!  Would everything work?

The scope was set up at the edge of a small field on the WMA and we were soon taking images.  The montage above shows, from left to right, the Sun forty minutes and fifteen minutes before mid-totality, totality, and fifteen and forty minutes after mid-totality.

The image at right shows the 6-inch telescope with the Televue 85mm refractor and camera attached.  You could form little pinhole images of the Sun with your hands, making a small opening in your curled fingers and looking at the shadow of your hand on the grass. It seemed like it took a long time for the level of light in the field to drop noticeably. The same thing was true for the temperature in the field.  There was little relief from the oppressive heat.

Everything seemed to accelerate in the last 30 seconds before totality.  The sky to the west darkened, as if a storm were approaching.  As the last sliver of the Sun's disk disappeared, we photographed the "diamond ring" in the image at right.

Then the silver corona burst forth around the coal-black disk of the eclipsed Sun. Venus and Jupiter appeared on opposite sides of the Sun.  The sky close to the horizon glowed a sunset-orange for a full 360 degrees and the sky overhead was eerily dark.  Suddenly I couldn't see the knobs on my camera, having to feel for them.

It was noticably cooler now. The Scissor-grinder Cicadas were calling very loud and the whoops and yells of observers along the river drifted up to us. 

Just before totality began, as the last sliver of sun disappeared, we took the image of Baily's Beads at right.

Baily's Beads are caused by the last rays of the Sun finding their way through the lunar mountains and valleys at the limb of the Moon.  They are named after the man credited with their discovery, the 19th century astronomer Francis Baily.

Before Baily published his explaination for the beads, Sir Edmund Halley described the beads he saw during the total eclipse of 1715.  He correctly ascertained their cause and published the explanation.

Also visible in the image is the thin red line of the solar chromosphere.  This layer of the solar atmosphere lies above the photosphere but below the corona.The chromosphere glows red with the light of glowing hydrogen, and is only briefly visible during an eclipse.  It's estimated to be between 3,000 km and 5,000 km in depth.

Being primarily a "deep sky" astrophotographer, I am used to seeing the reddish hydrogen alpha light in nebulae, and dotting the arms of spiral galaxies.  I'm not used to seeing it so "close to home".  Hydrogen alpha is a wavelength of light emitted by hydrogen atoms when they receive large amounts of energy. Whenever an electron moves between certain energy shells in a hydrogen atom, a photon of light at 656 nanometers is emitted.  This is the characteristic wavelength of the reddish hydrogen alpha light.

Prominences are anchored in the photosphere and rise through the chromosphere into the corona.  They, too, glow in the light of Hydrogen alpha.

These were quite beautiful in the 6 inch scope, and are viewed without a solar filter.  Of course, you always have to keep in mind exactly how much time you have to safely view them before totality ends. 

Prominences change over a fairly short time scale, appearing to loop out into the corona and then fall back down into the photosphere.  They occur when the structure of magnetic field lines extending from the Sun becomes unstable.

Experiencing the eclipse was both awe-inspiring and all-encompassing. It cast a spell that lingered long after the bright solar crescent burst forth again from behind the dark limb of the Moon.  We were left feeling very grateful for an unforgettable afternoon.

 Sky Events for September 2017::

Saturn is in Ophiuchus as the month begins, and will be highest in the sky shortly after dusk. The tilt of the rings is now 26.7 degrees, and the view is spectacular in any size telescope.