Reserve Dates! These April Nights You Can See Lyrid Meteor Shower With Naked Eyes! Here's How
Set aside the days, rather the nights of April 21 to April 23 for another awe-inspiring celestial event that you will be able to witness, thanks to the tremendously decreased pollution in the cities (owing to coronavirus lockdown). This event is the Lyrid meteor shower!
The Lyrid meteor shower appears annually between April 16 and 25 every year. It tends to peak around April 22 or 23 in India.
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Since the moon is going to be a crescent, its light won¡¯t interfere in the night sky. All you need is the night sky to be clear on those days, according to Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office you can expect to see you can expect to see around 15 meteors per hour.
The Lyrid is one of the oldest recorded meteor showers named after the constellation Lyra. The fireballs in the meteor shower are the debris from comet Thatcher, which takes about 415 years to orbit around the Sun. The comet will be visible from earth again in 2276.
- What time to watch the sky for the meteor shower?
Here are the times and locations of when the comet will be visible in India.
Time And Date
*Azimuth is the direction, based on true north; altitude is height in degrees over horizon.
- How to see it?
No particular equipment or skills are required to view the meteor shower. All you need is a clear sky, a place away from the pollution of city so that light doesn¡¯t hinder your view of the sky, some patience for your eyes to get used to the dark and a compass or an app that can point you in the right direction.
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You never know, when the night sky will be so clearly visible to you next, it is better to exploit this time and your time at home to the maximum to gaze at the wonders of space and nature.
