FILE – The Lyrid meteor shower in the evening sky over the Anza-Borrego Desolate tract in California
Kevin Key / Slworking/Getty PicturesThe annual Lyrid meteor shower might maybe perhaps perhaps non-public peaked closing evening, but there is composed time to grab the show conceal thru April 25.
Within the Bay Salvage, you are unlikely to query the blazing fireballs streaking all the design in which thru the sky at the flee and in San Francisco with fog in the in a single day forecast, but it is possible you’ll maybe perhaps survey them overhead from inland areas.
“The handiest probability for definite skies tonight will doubtless be inland some distance flung from the flee and down the bay shoreline,” said Roger Gass, a forecaster with the National Weather Provider’s workplace in Monterey. “Locations esteem Hayward and cease to the San Francisco airport and down thru San Jose and up and around Oakland, these places might maybe perhaps perhaps non-public the next probability.”
The Lyrids peak yearly in leisurely April when the Earth passes thru particle dust left in the back of by the Thatcher Comet. When Earth enters into the debris cloud, the bits of sand and diminutive rocks dissipate as they bustle into the ambiance, constructing a shower of shooting stars.
“From a unhappy sky self-discipline, you’d search data from to query about 20 to 25 meteors per hour actual thru the height,” said Gerald McKeegan, adjunct astronomer at Chabot Home & Science Heart in Oakland. “Nevertheless, this 12 months we non-public a shiny moon that can make it sophisticated to query the fainter meteors.”
McKeegan said for the handiest viewing, it is possible you’ll maybe perhaps composed win a moderately faraway self-discipline some distance flung from city lights, and ideally a little bit elevated in elevation. One current self-discipline is Inspiration Level in Tilden Park, but he recommends finding somewhere even farther from the city if conceivable.
“While you detect a assign, it is handiest to lie down so that it is possible you’ll maybe perhaps survey as much of the sky as conceivable,” he said. “Meteors can seem any place in the sky, but their direction makes them appear to attain from the east, cease to the constellation Lyra.”
The Lyrids is allegedly the principle recorded meteor shower, with Chinese astronomers recognizing these dancing lights in the sky bigger than 2,700 years ago.
Astronomers exercise the term “fine” to portray the point in the sky from which the meteors appear to attain, McKeegan said. The fine for this particular meteor shower is the constellation Lyra.
