NATURE
MONCTON NATURE NEWS
November 4,
2022
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Edited by
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**Many of us may tend
to think of the Moon only visible at night however the Earth and Moon
constantly rotate to make the Moon sometimes quite visible during the day.
Georges Brun shares
recent photo of the moon at its daytime finest.
**As can be expected,
a nice report from Doreen Rossiter in Alma:
Doreen still has a pair of Northern Cardinals and had a rare visitor (for Doreen) in a male House Finch. And Doreen sends yet another report of a Red- bellied Woodpecker. Late Thursday afternoon, she had a visit from a male. (Editor’s note: the recent number of reports of this woodpecker suggest we may have a pleasant number of them overwinter with us). Doreen also has had a female White-breasted Nuthatch arrive.
**As a follow-up to Doreen’s
report, the sharp-eyed team of Rhonda and Paul
Langelaan visited Doreen Rossiter's place Thursday, November 3. Doreen had
a juvenile Red-Headed woodpecker in one of her trees which she was
unaware of. She had other good birds too. The Red-bellied Woodpecker was there
as well as a Brown-headed Cowbird, Pine Warbler, and a White-breasted
Nuthatch. The 2 Northern Cardinals appeared as well.
Doreen Rossiter’s
daughter, Kathie Carter who lives on Ellerdale Ave in Moncton finally caught
sight of two birds she has been hearing and wondering about for over two weeks.
One turned out to be a male White-breasted Nuthatch and the other a Northern
Mockingbird. Two pleasant yard birds
**A bold Grey
Squirrel has been able to get Jamie Burris quite promptly trained in
meeting its culinary wishes. Check out the attached link:
** Brian Stone sends a photo of a male Mallard
Duck in flight (Editor’s note: note the clearly visible bright blue
speculum bordered in white. The American Black Duck has a similar darker blue
speculum bordered in black). A bright, red fall edition Blueberry Field
caught Brian’s attention in Salisbury.
Brian
also sends a screenprint of an Eclipse Map for the total Lunar
Eclipse on Tuesday morning, November 8th. At our location the Moon will
start eclipsing at 4:00 am on Tuesday and will be in full eclipse at dawn and
will set before it starts to un-eclipse.
**Friday has arrived
and our day of taking a look at what next week’s night sky will have in store for
us, courtesy of sky guru Curt Nason:
This Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2022
November 5 – November 12
I like to observe the sky at least once every day that I can, even if it is
just for a few minutes. Often that entails observing the Sun through filtered
telescopes and sketching the sunspots and prominences in my logbook. At night
if I don’t feel like taking out a telescope, I grab binoculars to perhaps see a
comet or Mercury, or more often I tour the brighter star clusters. The
mid-autumn constellations are home to many star clusters within easy reach of
binoculars.
I usually start with the best open cluster, the Pleiades (M45) in the shoulder
of Taurus the Bull and focus the binos on its stars. The large V-shaped Hyades
cluster, catalogued as Melotte 25, is nearby forming the face of the bull. It
is anchored by orange Aldebaran at one corner, but that star is not really part
of the cluster because it is less than half the distance to the others. The
brightest star in nearby Perseus, Mirfak, is part of a group of stars called
Melotte 20 that resembles a miniature version of the constellation Draco in
binoculars. Perseus also holds the star cluster M34, which appears as a fuzzy
patch in binos due to its distance. Between Perseus and Cassiopeia is the
scenic Double Cluster (Melotte 13/14). Follow a string of stars from there to a
large, dimmer cluster called Stock 2 or the Strongman Cluster.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton
is at 8:05 am and sunset will occur at 5:59 pm, giving 9 hours, 54 minutes of
daylight (8:08 am and 6:06 pm in Saint John). Next Saturday the Sun will rise
at 7:15 am and set at 4:50 pm, giving 9 hours, 35 minutes of daylight (7:18 am
and 4:57 pm in Saint John). We revert to Standard Time at 02:00 on Sunday; otherwise,
we would not see a sunrise before 8 am until March.
The Moon is full and probably reddish orange on Tuesday morning, with a
lunar eclipse beginning at 5:08 and totality from 6:16 until it sets around
sunrise. Saturn is at its best for observing in early evening, and
on Wednesday telescope or binocular users might see Jupiter’s moon Io disappear
behind the planet at 6:38 and emerge from the shadow on the other side at 9:52.
With the time change Mars will be rising before 7 pm. Mercury is at
superior conjunction on Tuesday, while Uranus reaches opposition the next day.
The South Taurid meteor shower peaks this weekend and the North Taurids next
weekend, with shooting stars emanating from points near the Pleiades star
cluster. Although neither shower yields a lot of meteors, they have a higher
proportion of bright ones called fireballs.
On Sunday evening at 8 pm, tune in to the Sunday Night Astronomy Show via the
Facebook page or YouTube channel of Astronomy by the Bay.
Questions? Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson
Poirier
Nature
Moncton
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