Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, May 2nd.  The sun rises at 6:30.  It’ll be up for 14 hours and 17 minutes, setting at 8:48.   The moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 3:09 tomorrow morning.

Monday morning will see the expected peak of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. The meteors will seem to come from the southeast. This shower has a very long peak and can be seen tomorrow morning.  This shower’s claim to fame is that the meteoroids that produce this shower are bits shed by Halley’s Comet.  The orbits of Halley’s comet and the earth nearly intersect at two points.  The inbound Halley’s comet crosses the earth’s orbit where the earth is on October 20th., when we have the Orionid meteor shower.  The comet’s orbit then passes between the orbits of Venus and Mercury then crosses the earth’s orbit again near where the earth is on May 6th.   The shower has 12 year fluctuations of peak numbers, probably caused by Jupiter.

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

Eta Aquarid radiant