Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, April 20th.  The sun rises at 6:49.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 8:34.   The moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 6:41 tomorrow morning.

The Lyrid meteor shower is reaching a peak soon.  With the nearly new moon, the moon will not interfere with the display.  While this a major annual shower, it usually produces only 15 meteors an hour at peak, although in some years as many as 90 an hour have been spotted.   The Lyrids are so named because the seem to come from the direction of the constellation Lyra the harp, one of the more famous summer constellations.  Well, they seen to come from between Lyra and Hercules to the west.  The peak of the shower occurs just after midnight on Sunday morning the 22nd.  The radiant point is up all night.  In the evening the meteors will come from the northeast from near the bright star Vega.  The numbers of meteors will increase through the night until dawn.

* 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