Additional Shooting Stars: Lyrid Swarm Peaks | interior

The Lyrid meteor shower peaks on Sunday. Although clouds will move over our country next night, according to meteorologist Raymond Klaassen, it will not be closed cloud cover. “So it’s possible to see something when it clears up,” he says. To observe the celestial dome as much as possible, he recommends lying down on a lawn chair. “Nights can still be cold, so dress warmly if you have to sit for that long.”

The best time to contemplate the sky is around 4 am. The chance of seeing shooting stars is greater if you look east in a dark place. In the night from Sunday to Monday, there are also more shooting stars than usual. Cloud fields can then again throw a spanner in the works, warns Klaassen.

According to him, we should not expect a large number of meteors (shooting stars). The Lyrids are a “modest swarm” that are most active on average about once every 60 years. “Meteors move along the firmament at about 47 kilometers per second,” explains the meteorologist. “This year the moon is not a problem because it is only 10% illuminated and during the peak it is already below the horizon.”

THE Lyrids appear to come from the constellation Lyra, named after the portable harp-like instrument of the ancient Greek musician and poet Orpheus. Small in size, the constellation sits high in the dome of the late night sky, well over 60 degrees above the southeastern horizon.

The meteor shower is the result of comet C1861 G1 Thatcher. It travels around the sun in 415 years, making it a long-period comet. The Lyrids were spotted by Chinese astronomers around 2,700 years ago.