Sky Watch: Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

Do you remember seeing Halley's comet -- the most famous of all celestial nomads -- when it swung past our neck of the cosmic woods in 1986? If you saw it, and even if you didn't, you'll have to wait for it to come back until the summer of 2061.

Personally, I'm looking forward to its return; of course, I'll be 109 years old and will be quite thrilled to see the sun rise, but that's my plan. In case I don't make it, I've got a backup strategy. And you can too if you're willing to get up early and head out to a dark rural location next week.

On the morning of Sunday, May 5, fragments of this most famous of comets will pelt our planet's atmosphere in what astronomers know as the Eta Aquarid meteor shower.

Meteors, or shooting stars, are specks of interplanetary dust hardly larger than a sand grain that encounter the Earth at speeds of tens of miles per second. As one of these slams into our air, it heats up and causes the neighboring atmospheric gases to glow. We see its fiery demise as a meteor.

Those of the Eta Aquarid shower are known to be pieces that have fallen off comet Halley during one of its many trips past our planet. Every year around this time, these fragments collide with our atmosphere almost head on at speeds of some 150,000 miles per hour, and the brighter ones can often show a yellowish color.

Though historical records suggest that sky watchers have been seeing the Eta Aquarids since about 74 BC, the shower was not officially "discovered" until Lt. Col. G.L. Tupman recorded it in the year 1870.

These meteors will appear all around the sky, but you can tell if one is part of the Eta Aquarid swarm by tracing its path backward. If it appears to come from the direction of Aquarius, low in the east-southeastern sky before dawn, it is almost certainly associated with this shower. If it appears to originate elsewhere, it's what astronomers call a "sporadic" or random meteor.

To view the celestial show, head away from city lights where the sky is dark and clear. Under ideal conditions, stargazers may see as many as 40 or 50 meteors, or falling stars, every hour, coming from the eastern sky. The best times for viewing will be between midnight and the first light of dawn. Though the moon will appear in its waning crescent phase that morning, it should only blot out the very faintest of meteors.

The best part is that all you need to view the shower is your eyes, a lawn chair or sleeping bag and some warm clothing. Absolutely no binoculars or telescopes are needed to view the shower -- they would produce much too narrow a field of view to see the all-sky show, though you may wish to have binoculars handy to check out the persistent smoke trails left behind by some of the meteors.

Admittedly, it's not the great comet itself, but it can still be quite a dramatic sky show. Besides, it sure beats waiting nearly half a century!