Brighton Astronomy Group Blog

The Lyrid Meteor Shower – so called as the radiant (from where the meteor trails seem to radiate from) lies in the constellation Lyra peaks in the early morning of the 22nd April and is a reliable, though not spectacular, shower with perhaps up to 15 meteors seen per hour. Observations of the Lyrid meteors have been made for at least 2,600 years! Happily, this year the peak of activity is only one day after the new moon so there will be no moonlight to hinder our observations should it be clear. Observations made after 1 am are expected to be the most productive. The dust particles that cause the shower have been released by the comet Thatcher, discovered in 1861. Occasionally we pass through a dense clump of particles as happened in 1982 when over 90 meteors were seen per hour. So its worth waking up to have a look if around 1-2 am should it be expected to be clear. Look to the East as shown in the chart.

The Radiant of the Lyrid meteor Shower
Stellarium/IM
Click On Image for larger Picture

Reprinted with the permission of

Ian Morison
Gresham Professor of Astronomy
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/

Professor Ian Morison Lectures can be viewed at
http://fora.tv/search_video?q=Morison

Tags: Meteor Shower

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 at 11:14 PM and is filed under Events, Meteor Shower. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.