Twin Meteor Showers & Supermoon in April

Twin Meteor Showers & Supermoon in April

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Posted 2021-03-31 by Roy Chambersfollow

Tue 06 Apr 2021 - Sat 24 Apr 2021

April will bring the first Supermoon of the year, as well as the usually great Lyrids Meteor Shower twinned with a once every 5 year meteor shower. Also, watch out for the very close approach between the Moon and Mars, among other Lunar conjunctions.



Lunar conjunctions

The month will start off fairly slowly with a couple of lunar conjunctions. On April 6, there will be a conjunction of the waning Moon and Saturn, following by a conjunction between the Moon and Jupiter the following day. You will need to get up early for this one, as moonrise is about 2 or 4 am, depending on which city you are in. If you are an early riser, you will clearly be able to see the bright "stars" of Saturn and Jupiter and the moon, even as the first predawn light hides the other stars.



A more interesting conjunction will be a very close conjunction of the Moon and Mars on April 17. In some parts of Asia, the moon will actually hide mars. Here is Australia expect the distance between the Moon and Mars to be only 0.07 degrees. The moon will set around 9 or 10 pm, depending on what city you are in. So you should be able to view this close approach of these 2 heavenly bodies from dusk as the sky darkens enough to see mars.

Twin meteor showers

On the morning of April 23, the Lyrids Meteor Shower promises to bring about 20 shooting stars per hour at its peak. The shower actually runs from April 16 to April 25, but with lower rates of meteors on those days, and is created by dust left over by comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher.



Like most meteor showers, the hours of viewing range from around Midnight to the first lightning of the sky. The moon will set at around 1:30 or 2:30 in the morning (depending on the city you are in). After that, you will have plenty of opportunity to view the shootings stars.

Remember, to view them, you want to get out of the city to be far away from any light pollution. Remote beaches, mountain tops or just a field in the bush are good for this. Meteors will radiate out from the constellation Lyra but can appear anywhere in the sky. The Lyrids is famous for shooting stars that can sometimes leave bright dust trails that can last for 1 or 2 seconds.



The following night on April 24 is the lesser-known & #960 ;-Puppid meteor shower, created by dust from the 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup comet. This meteor shower only appears about once every five years and usually produces only a few shooting stars, but as it has only been observed since in the 1970s, not a lot is known about it. Like most other meteor showers, it is best viewed between midnight and dawn, but of course, you will have to wait for the moon to set before you will be able to see any shooting stars. The radiant point is the constellation Puppis but the shooting stars can appear anywhere in the sky. It should combine with the Lyrids and the first shooting stars of May's Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower to put on a nice show.

Supermoon

The other highlight of April will be the first supermoon of the year. As the term supermoon is not from astronomy, there is no exact definition of it, but generally, there are 3 full moons each year when they approach perigee, that is, the moon is at its closest point to the Earth in its slightly elliptical orbit. While the moon will be bigger, it is hard for the human eye to detect it as such, but it will definitely be brighter.



The moon rises about 20 minutes before sunset and will set the next morning after sunrise. As it is a Tuesday, it is a good day to head out to somewhere after work to enjoy the moonrise. Other popular supermoon activities include photographing the moon and hiking under the moonlight.



Overall

April brings some interesting astronomical events for the month. Definitely go out and see the twin meteor showers if you can, otherwise the rest of the month's highlights all involve the moon, which you can see even from the suburbs.

#astronomy
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#april
!date 06/04/2021 -- 24/04/2021
%wnbrisbane
175486 - 2023-06-15 15:33:11

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