Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, April 21st. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 8:36, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:45. The Moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 6:58 tomorrow morning.

The Lyrid meteor shower will reach its peak tomorrow morning at around 2 a.m. The Moon will be new tomorrow so it won’t interfere. The radiant point, from which the meteor seem to come is between the constellation Lyra the harp for which they are named with its bright star Vega and Hercules. The numbers of meteors seen in an hour could be between 12 and 20. The Lyrids are caused by the debris left when a comet last seen in 1861, crossed Earth’s orbit as Comet Thacher. Speaking of comets, a new comet named SWAN was discovered a month ago. It was detected by with the Solar Wind An-iso-tropies camera or SWAN aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or (SOHO) spacecraft. We’ll follow Comet SWAN as it approaches the Sun next month.

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

Addendum

An animation Looking east at 2 a.m. April 22, 2020 toward Lyra, and Hercules with the Lyrid meteor radiant. The named stars are the stars of the Summer Triangle. Click on the image to enlarge.  The meteors will appear all over the sky, but Lyrid meteors can be back traced to the radiant point. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.