04/28/2014 – Ephemeris – The Lyrid meteor shower will reach peak tomorrow

Ephemeris for Monday, April 21st.  The sun rises at 6:48.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 46 minutes, setting at 8:34.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 2:52 tomorrow morning.

The second major meteor shower this year will reach its peak tomorrow afternoon (~18h UT).  The best shot to see it will be tonight from about 10 to near 3 a.m. when the moon rises.  The meteor shower is called the Lyrids, because they seem to come from near the constellation Lyra the harp and the bright star Vega.  At 10 p.m. Vega is the brightest star low in the northeastern sky.  By 3 a.m. Vega will be high in the east.  The radiant of the meteors is to the west of Vega between Lyra and the dim constellation of Hercules.  The most meteors will be visible just before the moon begins to brighten the sky before 3 a.m.  Though a major shower the peak hourly rate is expected to be 18 meteors an hour.  However we won’t quite get close to that rate.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Lyrid meteor radiant. The bright star is Vega

The source of my information, the International Meteor Organization calendar can be downloaded from here.

David Dickinson’s post on this year’s Lyrid meteor shower on Universe Today is here.