An Excellent Year for the Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower


The Eta Aquariid radiant is shown here from latitude 30° north (Houston, Cairo, Delhi, Shanghai) 90 minutes before sunrise. Farther north, the radiant is lower when the sky starts to get light. Shower members can appear anywhere across the sky, but they all trace their paths backwards to the radiant.
"If you haven't paid much attention to the Eta Aquariid shower due to its early hour, it's time to commit. These speedy spitballs from the constellation Aquarius may be the last good meteor show for the remainder of the year. You can blame the Moon. The richest showers — the August Perseids and December Geminids — will take a severe hit from moonlight this year. In both cases, the Moon will be at or near full and up most of the night. Even October's Orionids will only limp along thanks to a last quarter Moon. ... Maximum occurs Sunday morning, May 5th, in the wee hours before the start of dawn. That means you'll need to be outside watching from about 3–4:30 a.m. To make sure you don't miss that window, click here for your sunrise time and back up about 1 hour and 40 minutes to figure the start of morning twilight. Then back up one more hour to allow time to view the shower under a dark sky. ..."
Sky & Telescope
W - Eta Aquariid
YouTube: Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower- Early May 2019

Eta Aquariids are dribs and drabs of Halley's Comet. Perturbations by planets and the Sun have caused the particles to spread out into a ribbon centered on Halley's orbit. Earth plows through the debris in the outbound leg of the comet's orbit every May and the inbound leg every October.

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