Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, April 20th. The Sun rises at 6:50. It’ll be up for 13 hours and 44 minutes, setting at 8:34. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 1:50 tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow is Astronomy Day. The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will celebrate with a star party at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory. Tomorrow April 21st, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. There will also be activities inside the observatory, so clear or cloudy there will be something to see or do for all ages. The Lyrid Meteor Shower will be active this weekend and reach a peak Sunday. The meteors from this shower will seem to come from near the constellation of Lyra the harp, a small and narrow parallelogram of stars with the bright star Vega near it. The best viewing will be for a few hours in the wee morning hours after the Moon sets Sunday or Monday mornings.

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

Addendum

All sky view at 4 a.m. Sunday or Monday morning with the Lyrid radiant. Created using Stellarium.

The additional radiants showing in the image above are the (sigma) σ-Scorpids which will reach peak on April 28th, a minor shower and (eta) η-Auqariids which will reach peak on May 6th.  Both these meteor showers have severe interference by the Moon.