Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 July 4, 1956
- 2 What is a meteor?
- 3 Some historical notes
- 4 Small rocks and dust in space
- 5 Observing meteors
- 6 Recording meteors
- 7 A New Year gift: the Quadrantids
- 8 The Lyrids – an April shower
- 9 The Eta Aquarids
- 10 The Omicron Draconids, continued
- 11 The Delta Aquarids
- 12 Tears of St. Lawrence: Perseid trails and trials
- 13 The August Pavonids
- 14 The Orionids
- 15 The Taurids
- 16 The Leonids
- 17 The Geminids
- 18 The Ursids
- 19 A catalog of meteor showers throughout the year
- Appendix
- Index
8 - The Lyrids – an April shower
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 July 4, 1956
- 2 What is a meteor?
- 3 Some historical notes
- 4 Small rocks and dust in space
- 5 Observing meteors
- 6 Recording meteors
- 7 A New Year gift: the Quadrantids
- 8 The Lyrids – an April shower
- 9 The Eta Aquarids
- 10 The Omicron Draconids, continued
- 11 The Delta Aquarids
- 12 Tears of St. Lawrence: Perseid trails and trials
- 13 The August Pavonids
- 14 The Orionids
- 15 The Taurids
- 16 The Leonids
- 17 The Geminids
- 18 The Ursids
- 19 A catalog of meteor showers throughout the year
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
Meteors make their fickle vagaries.
After such a long interval – almost four months – since the last major shower, I never want to miss the Lyrids. As the night of maximum came along in 2006, I spent night after night observing the sky. Even though the darkness of the sky remained undimished by moonlight, the patterns of stars were mostly undisturbed by meteor trails. There were a few, and some were bright, but this year's shower was somewhat disappointing.
After the Quadrantids, we look forward to the Lyrids opening its curtain on the sky. These meteors can reach a theoretical rate of about 15 per hour per observer on the night of maximum, April 20/21, but I have never seen that many. In 1803 observers in eastern North America fared differently: they observed some seven hundred meteors in one hour. In 1982, some people noted activity reaching about 80 per hour, a dramatic increase characterized by fainter than usual meteors.
Even so, the 2006 display exceeded my experience from the year before. In 2005 I saw but one meteor. A single, solitary flash in the night was my sole experience with the Lyrids. But it was a wonderful meteor. Brighter than Vega, it sped through a few degrees of sky to the north of the radiant and left a short trail. It was greenish-white. And that was the Lyrids for 2005.
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- Chapter
- Information
- David Levy's Guide to Observing Meteor Showers , pp. 53 - 57Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007