04/20/2017 – Ephemeris – The Lyrid meteors are reaching their peak now

Ephemeris for Thursday, April 20th.  The Sun rises at 6:49.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 44 minutes, setting at 8:33.  The Moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 4:20 tomorrow morning.

We are in a period where the Lyrid meteors appear.  This capricious shower peaks at various times and with a variety of peak numbers from 14 to 90 per hour.  The expected peak will be April 22nd at 8 a.m.   The radiant point, from where the meteors seem to come, lies between the constellation Lyra and its bright star Vega and Hercules to the west of it.  The radiant point starts the evening low in the northeast and moves nearly overhead when the Moon finally rises.  The meteors, sometimes called falling stars will appear all over the sky, but can be traced back to that radiant point.  The best time to see these or any meteor shower is when the radiant point is highest in the sky.  That will be Saturday morning.

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

Addendum

Location of the Lyrid meteor radiant at midnight. Note that the radiant point is a spot that the meteors can be back tracked to. The meteors will appear all over the sky. If they appear near the radiant they will appear to move the slowest, since their actual motion is mostly toward the observer. Created using Stellarium.

The display of meteor shower radiants is a plug-in in the latest versions of Stellarium.