Natural Calendar - June 2019

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. 

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

 

Sky Events for June 2019:

The June Solstice occurs at 11:54am EDT on June 21st.  This is the longest day and shortest night of the year and marks the beginning of summer for the Northern Hemisphere.

Morning Sky:  

Jupiter, May 8th, 2015, 20 Inch Newtonian Reflector and ZWO ASI 120MM Camera 
Venus rises a little less than an hour before the Sun at the beginning of the month. Venus will be low in the predawn sky all month long.

Evening Sky:

Mars and Mercury are low in the west after sunset as the month begins. Both are in the constellation of Cancer. Towards the end of the month you will need binoculars to pick them out of the twilight glow. The apparent size of both is very small. Mars is less than 4 seconds of an arc in diameter and Mercury is around 6 seconds of an arc in diameter.

Jupiter is in southern Ophiuchus this month, and rises less than an hour after sunset. It reaches opposition on June 10th.  At opposition it is about 46 seconds of an arc in apparent diameter.

Saturn rises about three hours after sunset at the beginning of the month, in the constellation of Sagittarius.  Look for the ringed planet to the left of the "teapot".

 

NGC 5907 , May 18th and 19th, 2009, 6 inch Refractor at f12 and ST2000XCM CCD Camera, Total Exposure Time 8 hours.

Constellations: The views below show the sky looking east at 10:30pm CDT on June 15th. The first view shows the sky with the constellation 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.  New constellations this month in the eastern sky are Lyra, the Lyre, with its bright star Vega, Cygnus, the Swan, and Aquila, the Eagle.  The bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair form the "summer triangle."  Looking to the north, the edge-on galaxy NGC 5907 rides high above the Little Dipper in Draco.  This galaxy was discovered in 1788 by William Herschel.  Most estimates place it at a distance of around 40 million light-years.  Using averted vision, I've seen it as a faint narrow streak of light in my 85mm Televue refractor.  A 6-inch telescope will give you a better view.  As with all deep sky objects, you need a clear dark sky. 
 
June15th, 10:30pm EDT, Looking East
 
June 15th, 10:30pm EDT, 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 June.  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 Altair and Vega in the above scene looking east), 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 stars that make up the constellation Lyra.

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 July 15th at 10:30pm EDT, you can stay up till 12:30am EDT on June 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.  You may also want to check out at H. A. Rey's classic, The Stars, A New Way to See Them.

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:  We really love the Sky Safari 6 Pro.  It is available for both 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."

Another 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.

 

Amphibians:

Green Frog
In June the treefrogs really hit their stride.  Listen for Cope's Gray TreefrogsGray Treefrogs, Bird-Voiced Treefrogs, Green Treefrogs and Barking TreefrogsNorthern Cricket Frogs and Southern Cricket Frogs call a lot during June, and the calls of Bullfrogs, Green Frogs and Fowler's Toads fill the night air.  After heavy rains listen for the high, insect-like call of the Eastern Narrowmouth Toad and the strange-sounding Eastern SpadefootRecommended:  The Frogs and Toads of North America, Lang Elliott, Houghton Mifflin Co.

 

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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

All images and recordings © 2019 Leaps