Falling stars. Photo: Adobe Stock / Belish
Coming nights there will be extra shooting stars because meteor dwarf Lyrids our planet passes. Shooting stars of the Lyrids are often very beautiful. The best viewing night is the night from Friday to Saturday. You can read how much, what time and where to look in this article.
A meteor shower consists of pieces of space rock. As soon as such a rock enters our atmosphere and causes a light trail, it is called a meteoroid. These are popularly referred to as shooting stars. A meteoroid that manages to reach the Earth’s surface is called a meteorite.
Shooting stars of the Lyrids enter our atmosphere at a particularly high speed. On average, the speed is no less than 170,000 km/h! They are often very bright and sometimes display fireballs.
Meteorite. Photo: Adobe Stock / Vladimir
The best viewing moment and the viewing direction
There will be additional shooting stars for the next five nights. The night with the most shooting stars is the night from Friday to Saturday. The number of shooting stars caused by the Lyrids is then about 8 per hour and if you count the ‘regular’ shooting stars you get between 12 and 19 shooting stars per hour.
It is already the end of April and the nights are relatively short. During the night, the radiant, which is the point in the atmosphere from which the shooting stars seem to emerge, rises higher in the sky. This increases visibility, but around 4:05 a.m. the moon rises and it will soon give a lot of light that can disturb.
The best viewing period is therefore before and around ‘moonrise’ and therefore approximately from 3:00 am to 4:30 pm. You then look towards the southeast and quite high (around 60 degrees, where 0 degrees is the horizon and 90 degrees straight up). The number of shooting stars clearly visible to the naked eye during this period is around 16 per hour. From 5:45 am it starts to get dark and the chance of seeing shooting stars disappears quickly.
Is the weather favorable?
The most important weather element for spotting shooting stars is, of course, the cloud cover. In that regard, the outlook looks favourable. In the night to Saturday it will not be completely cloudy, but there will be broad clearings. It is not really cold, because the temperature is around 10 degrees in the middle of the night. In the Ardennes it is a bit colder with a degree of 7 degrees. The wind is moderate. Keep an eye on the current weather forecast our detailed weather forecast.
During the night from Thursday to Friday and the night from Saturday to Sunday, there is likely to be more cloud. The number of shooting stars is also lower, with a maximum of about 12 per hour.
If you go out, put on warm clothes. Because you don’t move much while stargazing, 10 degrees and a moderate wind feel quite cold. A warm winter coat is certainly not a luxury. It is also advisable to take a sun lounger with you to be able to look calmly and to easily look quite high up.
You can read more tips about watching shooting stars outside: viewing tips for seeing shooting stars
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