This week the Lyrid meteor shower is expected to pickup overnight Sunday into Monday morning. Conditions couldn't be better with clear skies expected during the best viewing times before sunrise early in the week. This week's new moon will also improve viewing conditions making a few more meteors visible than usual.

International Dark Sky week has moved online for 2020 with presentations on topics such as basic astronomy, scale of the universe and more.

Monday

The Moon is easy to find in the sky, right? Not always.

While a supermoon is easy to spot, especially near the horizon. It's big and bright and hard to miss because it is full illuminated and near perigee, its closest point to Earth.

The Moon reaches apogee, the furthest point from Earth at 3 pm on Monday. So it is a bit smaller in the sky.

Early this week the moon rises about 15-20 minutes ahead of the Sun, making it particularly challenging to see. Just a sliver is still visible, less than 5% of its surface illuminated by the Sun.

Tuesday

Morehead Planetarium

Meteors

The Lyrid meteor shower peaks overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning. Expect 10-15 meteors per hour to be visible from rural areas, about half that under suburban skies.

The meteors are caused be debris not much bigger than a grain of sand left behind by comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher traveling about 30 miles per second through the atmosphere.

Meteors will appear to be coming from the constellation Lyra, just ot the right of the bright star Vega. Vega rises about 9pm but most of the show will still be hidden below the horizon. Few if any meteors will be visible until after midnight.

The best time to look is a few hours before sunrise, when that radiant point is highest in the sky exposing the most sky real estate where meteors might be.

Meteors can appear anywhere in the sky so don't necessarily focus on the constellation Lyra, look to the darkest part of your sky, away from artificial lights.

Wednesday

SpaceX is planning the seventh launch of Starlink satellites from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:37 pm. You can watch the launch live on YouTube:

NASA is celebrating the 50th Earth Day with a series of activities you can do at home.

You can explore the Earth from the view point of NOAA satellites including GOES-East which is used each day by WRAL meteorologists, as well as Aqua, Aura and other satellites NASA's A-Train of satellites gathering information about our atmosphere.

You can also use data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to build a LEGO 3D model of a hurricane.

Thursday

Morehead Planetarium

10 am: How Dark is Your Night Sky? (preschool)

5 pm: Teen Science Cafe, Life in the times of Covid-19 with Joanna Ramirez, Community Outreach Coordinator for UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Backyard astronomy for you and your family

The Big Dipper, an asterism in the constellation Ursa Major, is more visible now. Its a good test of your vision too. Look to the the second star from the end of the handle. It is actually two stars, Mizar and Alcor, separated by about 1/10th of a degree.

If your skies are dark enough, and your vision good enough, they will show up as two stars with the naked eye, they will through binoculars.

Challenge your family to see them as two stars. Hint: Alcor is the dimmer one down and slightly to the left of Mizar.

Friday

Look for Mars before sunrise. The line of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter still dominate the morning sky while Mars widens the gap.

Morehead Planetarium