“This year’s Eta-Aquarids have good conditions in the sense that the maximum will be when we still have night. It comes out on the morning of May 6. At the same time, the Moon does not shine so much there, “summed up astronomer and photographer Petr Horálek from the Institute of Physics of the Silesian University in Opava.
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The radiant, the place where meteors seem to fly, is in the constellation Aquarius – near one of its brightest stars: Eta Aquarii.
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“If you want to see an Eta-Aquarid, only in the morning – between half past two and five. With the fact that at five there is already a lot of light. This short time, when Aquarius comes out, most meteors can be observed. Definitely don’t wait for them in the evening, “Horálek pointed out.
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Last year’s capture of an Eta-Aquarida with Comet SWAN (French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean)
Photo: Luc Perrot
According to Horálek, the problem is that the radiant is low above the horizon and many meteors shine below the horizon. “Although the frequency is relatively high, for example 40 to 50 meteors per hour, we see a maximum of five or seven per hour in our latitudes,” he explained, adding that they can usually be enjoyed by observers in the equator.
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According to him, the photos of Eta-Aquarid from the Czech Republic practically do not exist, as they either cancel Měšice, or the weather is bad, or both. “The window to observe them is very short in our country,” remarked this popularizer of astronomy.
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Orionides, whose mother body is also Halley’s Comet, are more numerous. Their maximum falls in October.
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The weather will wish
As far as the weather is concerned, according to Dagmar Honsová from Meteopress, visibility should be good in most of the Czech Republic in the first Thursday hours.
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“It will be predominantly partly cloudy or almost clear, only in the north of the territory in mountain areas and in the Šumava, low clouds or fog can form in the valleys. High frontal clouds will start to increase from the southwest just around five o’clock in the morning, “the meteorologist told Novinky, adding that the weather should not complicate the observation of a meteor swarm too much.
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A meteor from the swarm of Eta-Aquarida against the Milky Way in Australia
Photo: Colin Legg
“During those morning hours, people can also enjoy the planets Jupiter and Saturn, at dawn then the crescent moon – practically in one row,” Horálek added for Novinky.
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Halley’s comet itself last appeared at the Sun in February 1986, again in 2061. It is the first mathematically predicted comet in history.
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