The next week will be a fun one for skywatchers, as the Lyrid meteor shower will be visible over the weekend and peak on Monday night. If you’re hoping to catch sight of this charming cosmic event, then Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society, has shared tips on how to get the best view from wherever you live.
The Lyrids will be visible from 17 to 26 April, and will peak on the evening of 21 to 22 April. You won’t see long, bright streaks like you do with other meteor showers, but you might see brief flashes called fireballs.
“With the Lyrids, you’ll be looking for a little flurry of short-lived streaks of light – what you might popularly call ‘shooting stars’,” Massey said in a video explainer. “With this particular shower you could expect to see maybe 10 to 15 an hour at the peak, so it’s not massively prolific… but if you’ve got a clear sky it’s still very much worth it.”
A meteor shower happens when the Earth passes through a cloud of debris in its orbit, leftover from comets or asteroids. In the case of the Lyrids, the debris comes from the tail of Comet Thatcher, which takes more than 400 years to complete an orbit around the sun and hasn’t come close since 1861. But the debris it left behind is still present, and Earth passes through it once per year, with pieces burning up in the atmosphere to create the shooting stars.
If you want to try and see the meteor shower, there should be a good view throughout the northern hemisphere as the moon won’t rise until late in the night — as long as there aren’t clouds in the way.
“The good thing about a meteor shower – and the Lyrids are no exception – is that you don’t need any special equipment,” Massey said. “The best equipment is just your eyes, looking up at the sky. Now in this particularly case, the radiant – the point of the sky they appear to come from – is in the constellation of Lyra, near the bright star Vega, part of the Summer Triangle.
“So if you’re looking in the small hours of the morning – which is the best time to look – then if you’ve got a clear sky just look up. The radiant will be slightly over towards the east, but it’s not absolutely critical which direction you’re looking.”
If you’re hoping for the best view, you’ll need to be patient and give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness. So set yourself up somewhere comfortable like a deck chair, get a good view of the sky, and avoiding looking at bright objects like your phone to give you the best night vision.
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