The Lyrids Are Coming!

SeaDour writes "The year's first meteor shower, the Lyrids, will peak in the pre-dawn hours of April 22nd when the Earth plows through the debris trail of Comet Thatcher at a relative velocity of 49 km/s (110,000 mph). Lyrids usually aren't as numerous as other showers (such as the famed Leonids), but they're well-known for their spectacular tails; you can expect to see about 5-20 meteors per hour, depending on the severity of your local light pollution. Unfortunately, my current location in the midwest under stormy skies puts me at a bit of a disposition, but hopefully some other Slashdotters can share their observations with us tomorrow."

Comments

Ho hum

[l810c]

Meteor showers used to be cool years ago when I used to take drugs and watch them.

Now that I've quit all that stuff, they just don't excite me anymore :(

Wow.

[nickochee]

"Every year in April Earth plows through Thatcher's dusty debris stream with a relative velocity of 49 km/s (110,000 mph). Meteoroids (most no bigger than grains of sand)..."

Speeds up to 110,000 miles per hour coming from meteoroids always remind me of how fast we're traveling on this pale blue dot.

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Extraordinary

[Vlar]

the article mentioned 5-20 meteors per hour. I was wondering if anyone knew how many meteors you can expect in an average forecasted meteor (not bathing) shower?

Suggested Camera Settings?

[Alan]

I'm a bit of an amateur photographer, and was wondering what the more experienced ones out there would set their cameras up with as far as shutter speed / apateur for this event? I figure I'll set my digital as long as it'll go at f8 or however small of an apateur I can set, but is that good or not?

Re:Suggested Camera Settings?

[nonameisgood]

No digital, most of the CCD's will overheat on long (minute+) exposures.

As for film, the best way I've used is to get to a really dark place, or at least no glowing of the sky. Open the shutter with a remote or bulb and leave it that way until you see one. Close the shutter and try again...we are talking minutes - you could have to wait 5-10 minutes in some cases.

It also works to leave the shutter open through several streakers. If you are persistent, you may get a good "earthgrazer" that travels the entire span of the sky.

Check out www.spaceweather.com (sorry, not in the mood to html this.)

Live in the desert? Lucky dog!

[dulles]

If anybody out there lives in Nevada or near the Eastern High Sierras of California, I envy you: I would be in my car, or on my motorcycle, without hesitation, to enjoy a three hour drive into nowhere.
In the time I lived in the Eastern High Sierras (www.deepsprings.edu) I was lucky enough to witness two Leonid showers. They were, witout fail, among the most awe-some night-time events of my life.
So, you desert dwellers... waste no time in making the decision to go.
(I was also once witness to a paraselene - a fabulous sort of full-circle moon-rainbow. Beautiful!)

Re:What about the 'rest of world' category?

[uberdave]

It will take a couple of days for the Earth to pass through the comet trail, thus every longitude will have the opportunity of viewing the show. I can't speak for latitude. If the comet was coming from above the earth's orbital plane as it headed sunward, southern latitudes would be out of luck for most of the show. Gravity might bend a few your way though.

Speed vs. velocity

[GrayTech]

SeaDour writes "The year's first meteor shower, the Lyrids, will peak in the pre-dawn hours of April 22nd when the Earth plows through the debris trail of Comet Thatcher at a relative velocity of 49 km/s

There is no direction given, so SeaDour should have used speed, not velocity. Or is this a convention often used in astronomy?