Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Friday, April 21st. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 46 minutes, setting at 8:35, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:47. The Moon, 1 day past new, will set at 10:44 this evening.

Saturday night and Sunday morning will see the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower. This is the first of two major meteor showers of spring. The other one in two weeks will have to compete with a full Moon. This meteor shower will be visible all night. At the end of twilight the radiant of the shower, where the meteors will seem to come from, will be low in the northeast, to the right of the bright star Vega in the constellation of Lyra the harp, for which the meteor shower is named. The radiant point is actually between the constellations of Lyra and Hercules. Only 15 to 20 meteors an hour will be expected when the radiant is nearly overhead as morning twilight starts in the 5 am hour. The most famous meteor shower, for us, is the Perseids of August reaching peak on the morning of the 13th of August which will be seen in dark skies for most of the night.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Lyrid radiant at 11 pm, looking to the east-northeast. The meteors will be seen all over the sky, but their tracks can be traced back to the radiant point, like the parallel rails of a train track recede to a point in the distance. Created using Stellarium.