The annual Lyrid meteor shower is currently underway, due to peak in the early morning hours of Sunday 22 April. This year the absence of moonlight should help with viewing, but unfortunately the forecast of cloudy skies across most of the UK may cancel that out.

The Lyrids are a reliable (if generally unspectacular) annual shower of bright fast meteors associated with the periodic Comet Thatcher. The shower gets its name from the constellation Lyra in the north-eastern sky (as seen from the UK), as this is the part of the sky from which the meteor trails appear to radiate.

Most Lyrid meteors are around magnitude +2 but some, known as ‘Lyrid fireballs’, are much brighter and cast shadows for an instant, leaving behind smoky trails of debris that can last several minutes.

The Lyrids usually only produce between 5-20 meteors per hour, but occasionally the Earth passes through a thicker part of the comet’s dust stream resulting in a more intense shower. In 1982 amateur astronomers counted 90 Lyrid meteors per hour, and in 1803 an even stronger ‘storm’  was observed.

The Lyrids were observed as far back as 687 BC, as recorded in the Chinese ‘Zuo Zhuan’ or Chronicle of Zuo, making them the earliest-known meteor shower.

The next major annual meteor shower is the Eta Aquarids, a light shower associated with Comet Halley and due to peak around 5 May.

March has been an amazing month for planet-watching and it’s not over yet. Over the last few days we’ve had the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in the west-south-western sky. The two planets approached their closest this Tues, 13 March at just over 2 degrees apart (although still of course separated by a few hundred million miles of space).

Saturn, Mars and Mercury are also clearly visible this month. Mercury is making its best evening showing of the year, visible near the western horizon just after sunset. Mars, near its closest approach to the Earth, shines brightly in the sky all night long. And even distant Saturn is as bright as the brightest stars, visible in the south-eastern sky in the later evening.

Daytime Skywatch: Venus

Come and take a look through the Royal Observatory’s enormous 28-inch telescope at the planet Venus, as it approaches its greatest apparent distance from the Sun on 30 March.

Dates: 17, 24-25, 31 March 2012; further dates in April
Times: 16.30, 17.10, 17.50; cost :£5 | £15 family ticket
Find out more

Venus remains in an excellent position for observing for the whole of March. It then appears to gradually move closer to the Sun, heading towards the historic transit of Venus which begins on 5 June. This won’t occur again for another 105 years. Come and see our Measuring the Universe exhibition which celebrates past transits and what we’ve learnt from them.

The first meteor shower of the year is underway and peaking at the moment. The Quadrantids is one of the most spectacular but brief showers of the year, at its peak producing 60-120 meteors per hour.

Meteors, popularly known as ‘shooting stars’, appear as fleeting streaks of light and most are caused by particles no bigger than grains of sand. These collide with the Earth’s atmosphere at up to 70 km per second (157,000 mph) and burn up. With patience, meteors can be seen on any night of the year.

The Quadrantids

All the meteors in the Quatrandid shower appear to come from the same point in the sky, or radiant, situated near the familiar grouping of the Plough. The shower is named for the former constellation Quadrans Muralis, the stars of which once lay in that direction. The Quadrantids are less well-known than many other meteor showers, probably because only the hardiest observers brave the cold January nights.

In contrast with many meteor showers, the Quadrantids are not obviously connected to a particular modern-day comet but some astronomers believe them to originate from a large cometary body that broke up thousands of years ago.

In 2003, SETI institute astronomer Peter Jenniskens suggested that the Quadrantids are tied to the near-Earth asteroid 2003EH1 (see Dr Jenniskens’ paper here). Dr Jenniskens believes this object is actually an extinct comet, possibly once seen by the Chinese 500 years ago in 1490. The comet may have subsequently broken up, releasing all its volatile material in a single event. When the Earth passes through the dust cloud each January we see the meteor shower.

Viewing meteors

Unlike many astronomical objects, observers need no special equipment to view meteors. The sensitivity and wide field of view of the human eye are perfect for watching the Quadrantids and all observers need to do is watch the sky for a few minutes. 

As ever, it pays to leave the lights of the city behind and rural sites will offer the best view of the Quadrantids, but (weather permitting) they should be clearly visible all over the UK. 

The next major meteor shower of the year will be the Lyrids, which peak around 22 April. Find out more about annual meteor showers in our fact file.

Image: Meteors in the Quadrantid shower in January 1995. The image superimposed many video frames to illustrate the apparent origin of the meteors from their radiant. Credit: Sirko Molau, IMO, Archenhold-Sternwarte, NASA.

*Times are BST not GMT, and may not correspond exactly with the official (religious) sighting of the crescent moon.

The dates of Ramadan and other Islamic months depend on the sighting of the new crescent Moon.

Information on the visibility of the Moon from anywhere in the world is available from HM Nautical Almanac Office’s Websurf facilty:

• - accept the conditions of use (Websurf homepage)
• - select the ‘Moon-Viz’ link
• - choose or search for a place
• - select a date range
• - The visibility information (time) is in the ‘BEST TIME’ column;
  Moon set time is in the ‘Moon set’ column. NB add +1 hour for BST.
   

Also of interest

• - Al Hijra and the Islamic Calendar – fact file
• - Persian astrolabe – a beautiful astrolabe dating from 1070AH by the Islamic calendar, and including a grid for finding the direction of Mecca from a number of different towns and cities.
• - Arabic (Islamic) brass globe – 18th-century globe showing all 48 constellations that were known to the Ancient Greeks, and engraved with the Arabic names of some of the stars.
• - Transmission of knowledge – as Islam spread across Northern Africa from the 7th century, it helped change the purpose of astronomy: for example, it was now needed to produce accurate tables of prayer times.
   

The annual Lyrid meteor shower is visible from about 16-25 April and this year peaks 21-22 April. Unfortunately this year the glare of a waning gibbous moon will spoil the view in the late night and early morning hours, which are usually the best time to catch the Lyrids.

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s total lunar eclipse, a partial solar eclipse will be visible from the UK on the morning of 4 January 2011. The next solar eclipse visible from the UK will not be until 20 March 2015.

The partially-eclipsed Sun will rise in the south-east a little after 08.00 and the eclipse will end around 09:30. The greatest eclipse will be seen from northern Sweden at 08.50.

The table below shows details of eclipse times and magnitudes for various UK cities:

Eclipse details courtesy of Fred Espinak (NASA)

The best viewing locations with longest viewing time, greatest obscuration and greatest magnitude are in southern and eastern UK, declining towards the north and west.

Viewing the eclipse

WARNING: never look at the Sun directly through an optical instrument such as telescope or binoculars – it can result in permanent blindness. It is also dangerous to look at a bright Sun with the naked eye. Do not use sunglasses, polaroid filters, smoked glass etc to look at the Sun.

The safest way to view an eclipse is via optical projection, such as a pinhole projector. The following links from Exploratorium explain how to make two kinds of projector and also how to obtain safe filters:

• Making a pinhole projector
• Other optical projection and filters

Image: Partial solar eclipse, 3 October 2005, taken through a solar
filter. Mike Dryland, Flamsteed Astronomy Society

13 December 2010 – Clouds permitting, don’t forget to look out tonight and tomorrow for the last major meteor shower of the year. The Geminids are due to reach their peak at 16.45 UT on 14 December, as the Earth ploughs through a stream of debris left behind by asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The fragments burn up as they hit the Earth’s atmosphere causing the shooting stars, some reaching the size of big fireballs.

The Geminids shower seems to be intensifying each year, and an average of about 100 meteors per hour are expected to radiate from near the bright star Castor.

Leonids

The annual Leonids meteor shower should now be visible and is due to reach its maximum on Wednesday 17 November. Astronomers expect about 10-20 meteors per hour at the peak, which is low to average for this shower. Best viewing time is likely to be the early hours of Wednesday morning, particularly after the Moon sets at around 4.00 am. As always, best meteor viewing needs dark skies away from city lights.  

The Leonids are generally one of the more prolific annual meteor showers, with fast, bright meteors associated with Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The radiant (where the meteors appear to stream from) is at the head or ‘sickle’ of the constellation Leo, and meteors
can be seen each year over a period of several days centred on
approximately 17 November. Some of the meteors leave trails which can last for up to half an hour.

About every 33 years (the period of Tempel-Tuttle), the Leonids produce meteor ‘storms’ when hundreds
or even thousands of shooting stars can be seen. Such storms were seen in 1799, 1833,
1866, 1966 and 1999-2001 (although the expected 1899 and 1933 storms were disappointing). The 1833 storm was particularly spectacular, with an estimated 100,000 meteors per hour. The 1999-2001 storms produced about 3000 per hour.

Taurids and α-Monocerotids

As well as the Leonids, there is also the more minor Taurid meteor shower pair
(Southern Taurids and Northern Taurids). The main peak is coming to a close
now on 12 November, with a rate of about 8-10 meteors per hour, but the
showers continue until about 25 November, their radiants moving slowly
eastward across the constellation Taurus.

Finally, the minor α-Monocerotids shower will be active between 15-25 November, with a peak rate of only about 5 meteors per hour on the evening of 21 November. Very occasionally the shower produces a much stronger outburst but the next such event isn’t expected until 2043.

Image: Leonid shower; photo by Thomas Paulech and Juraj Toth, Bratislava, Slovakia

On 20 October 2010, Comet Hartley 2 (103P/Hartley) will pass within about 11 million miles (0.12 AU) of the Earth. This will be its closest approach since it was discovered in 1986, and one of the closest approaches of any comet in the last few hundred years. At this time, the comet should be visible in the constellation Auriga.

Image: Hartley 2 in Cassiopeia, 28 Sep 2010 (crop). Credit: NASA/MSFC/Bill Cooke, NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

Astrophotography opportunity

There will be a great opportunity for astrophotographers between 7-9 October as the comet passes close to the beautiful Double Cluster in Perseus. It is then expected to pass near the open cluster NGC 1528, also in Perseus, by 14 October. Don’t forget to enter your photographs of the comet in the 2011 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition which opens in January.

Viewing Hartley 2

Meanwhile over the next few days Hartley 2 should become increasingly visible with the aid of binoculars or a small telescope, and possibly even to the naked eye.

The comet is diffuse (its light is spread out over a wide area) so to see it you need a dark sky location free of city lights. The technique of averted vision – looking slightly to one side rather than straight on – is also helpful in locating faint objects. The comet will probably appear as a grey smudge of light or as a faint, fuzzy star. Heavens-Above.com has a useful locator chart.

After 10 October the Moon will start to make it harder to see the comet, so until 20 October best viewing time will be after moonset.

EPOXI mission

On 28 October, the comet will reach perihelion (closest approach to the Sun). Finally, on 4 November, NASA’s EPOXI mission (previously Deep Impact) will fly by the comet, with a closest approach of 435 miles.

It’s estimated that Hartley 2 will next come to perihelion in 2017, around 20 April.

The Perseids, one of the best-known and most spectacular annual meteor showers, peaks this year between 12-13 August.

The best times to view from the UK will be in the early morning hours of Thursday 12th and Friday 13 August, between about midnight and dawn. Weather permitting, viewing conditions should be ideal this year with the recent new Moon (10 August). At the maximum there could be over 80 meteors per hour.

The Perseids is a bright meteor shower associated with comet
Swift-Tuttle. As the Earth’s orbit passes through
that of the comet, tiny dust particles in the comet’s wake are swept up
by the Earth, entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 215,000 km/h and burning up. This produces the effect that we see as ‘shooting stars’ – meteors.

Perseid
meteors can be seen during late July and early August, falling off rapidly after a peak
around 12 August. It’s thought that the shower as a whole may be about 160,000 years old but the majority of what we can see is 5000 years old.

The ‘radiant’ of the shower (the point from which meteors appear to emanate) is the constellation Perseus, hence the name. The meteors can appear in any part of the sky, but the best place to look is usually about 1-2 handspans from the radiant, quite high in the northeastern sky.

In
clear weather, you should be able to spot a meteor every few minutes or
so. Most appear as flashes of light lasting less than a second, but
some may be more dramatic and leave more persistent trails. NB your eyes will take about 20 minutes to adapt to the dark. You’ll need to scan the sky for the
random flashes so it’s best not to use a telescope.

You can share your observations online via the Twitter Meteorwatch project – see http://meteorwatch.org/ for details.

Meteor showers are never completely predictable, and last year there was a second peak nearly a day after the main one.

More information about this meteor shower can be found in the Royal Observatory’s Perseids fact file.