Lyrid Meteor Shower Arrives This Weekend

mdsolar writes "If you want to take a chance on the Lyrid Meteor Shower you should be looking this weekend. This shower is usually a quiet one but can result is spectacular displays from time to time. Earth & Sky gives viewing times as the very early hours of Sunday and Monday morning. The moon will have set by then."

Comments

if you ask me, it started last night (4-19-07)

[hAckz0r]

I got up this morning and had a meteorite in my front yard. Landed about 40 feet from both my house and my car. It was about 3.5" in diameter and VERY heavy for its size. Metallic with iron oxide in the concave indentations but non-magnetic. It would do some serious damage if it hit something straight on, but this one must have skipped across the field next to us and just happened to stop where it was laying in my grass. I never heard a thing.

I live in a city...

[R3d M3rcury]

...you insensitive clod! We have a hard enough time seeing Venus!

I agree

[chocolatetrumpet]

I went for a walk on the evening of 4-19 and counted at least 3-4 meteors in the sky - a rather high number, as I rarely see even 1.

Re:Any info for Australians?

[onemorechip]

Lyra (where the radiant of this shower is) has a declination of 40 degrees north. Sydney is around 34 degrees south of the equator. So the radiant won't ever be very high above the horizon in Sydney, and you will probably not have a great view. Find out what time Vega transits this time of year (sometime between midnight and dawn, I'm sure); that is when Lyra is highest in the sky (it will be the bright star about 16 degrees above the northern horizon). You might be able to catch some meteors then.

congrats, youre rich.

[plasmacutter]

put the thing up for sale and you'll net yourself anywhere from a sizeable investment nest egg to the funds to pay off your mortgage.

here is a google hit with a chart of prices per gram