Look to the skies, the Lyrids are back!
April 21, 2020 4:00 PM Subscribe
Spotted by stargazers for more than 2,700 years (Space.com), the Lyrids are one of the oldest known meteor showers and will be lighting up the sky tonight and tomorrow night. Right on cue to celebrate Earth Day at home (NASA tweet, April 21, 2020). The related NASA blog post also notes that this is in the middle of International Dark Sky Week, who have a YouTube playlist if you're not situated to view a clear night sky.
And if you look up and press A you'll get some star pieces the next day!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:45 PM on April 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:45 PM on April 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
A little more information about viewing than was in the NASA blog post
posted by thelonius at 5:03 PM on April 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 5:03 PM on April 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
Covid-19 makes this a perfect opportunity for Day of the Lyrids!
Which in this best of all possible worlds, will turn out to contain a nontoxic cure and preventative for the corona virus, of course.
posted by jamjam at 9:06 PM on April 21, 2020
Which in this best of all possible worlds, will turn out to contain a nontoxic cure and preventative for the corona virus, of course.
posted by jamjam at 9:06 PM on April 21, 2020
Unfortunate that nobody has bothered to turn off all the unnecessary street lighting now that we have an overnight curfew and I-95 has about as much traffic as a rural highway in West Texas does in normal times. Binoculars help when trying to view planets or star clusters, but there is zero chance I will see another meteor shower until I move elsewhere.
Even if the cities in South Florida cared enough to require full cutoff lighting fixtures, there is enough humidity in the air that the sky glow would be hardly changed most nights. Even without the hundreds of aircraft confusing things, the stars remain mostly invisible.
It's a far cry from my childhood in a city of about 70,000 surrounded by miles of mostly empty pasture land and new growth forest where the sky glow was gone by 20 degree above the horizon and you could just make out the band of the milky way even with the city lights.
posted by wierdo at 12:11 AM on April 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
Even if the cities in South Florida cared enough to require full cutoff lighting fixtures, there is enough humidity in the air that the sky glow would be hardly changed most nights. Even without the hundreds of aircraft confusing things, the stars remain mostly invisible.
It's a far cry from my childhood in a city of about 70,000 surrounded by miles of mostly empty pasture land and new growth forest where the sky glow was gone by 20 degree above the horizon and you could just make out the band of the milky way even with the city lights.
posted by wierdo at 12:11 AM on April 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
I sat out last night for an hour around 1230. I saw one glorious long streaking meteor that bounced once and flared out, and only two others, short, not so bright. Skies were clear, but light pollution was more of a factor than i had hoped, on a moonless night. Still I am glad to have been reminded, and am happy to have see them.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:01 AM on April 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:01 AM on April 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
I spend the whole night out in the country for the 1998 Leonid shower. I saw hundreds of meteors. Many were astonishingly bright. Many left trails that persisted for a minute or more. Many were AUDIBLE.
But that was in Texas. I live in Oregon now, and we're socked in this week.
posted by neuron at 4:50 PM on April 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
But that was in Texas. I live in Oregon now, and we're socked in this week.
posted by neuron at 4:50 PM on April 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
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