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.