The predicted peak is early morning on April 22. There is the possibility of seeing (in my case, imaging) 12-15 an hour. I'll be happy with one...and extremely happy if the clouds hold off until after I bring my imaging gear inside.
When I first checked the sky at about 9:30 p.m., Friday evening, there was a thick cover of clouds over my area. I assumed my imaging time would be non-existent. However, another check of the sky around 11:30 p.m. provided my eyes with a sky full of stars and very good conditions.
But the conditions were nothing like the quality of the sky early in the morning on April 21. From my backyard in town, I normally see three stars in Ursa Minor. One of the stars, of course, is Polaris. The other two form the far end of the bowl of the dipper. Friday morning I could see all the stars of the Little Dipper. So I setup my camera.
At approximately 2:03 a.m., while I was inside enjoying the warmth, a meteor gracefully displayed its end which was fully captured on my camera. You can't miss the meteor in the image below.
Oddly enough, the meteor shown above is the only meteor I was able to capture Friday morning. My camera clicked its way through around 535 images. In all, I captured the passage of two aircraft, seven satellite transits and one meteor.
The image was taken with a Canon EOS 60D with a Tolkina 12-28 mm Wide Angle zoom attached and set to approximately 14mm. Shooting data was ISO 1600, 15-second exposure and an aperture of f/4. The image was saved in JPG format.
Earlier that morning, I stepped outside to make sure everything was still working strong and as I turned towards my entry door, my eye was drawn to a sporadic meteor entering the atmosphere just south of Jupiter. I followed that meteors trail as it moved northward until it disappeared about 15 degrees above the northern horizon. The meteor was slow and a very pleasing yellowish gold in color. It didn't leave a train, but at times, small bits seemed to fall off and instantly burn up.
It was only the second Earth-grazing meteor I have seen. It traveled across a good three quarters of the sky before disappearing and was visible for a good five seconds.
I initially thought the meteor might have been captured on the upper part of one of my images, but that wasn't to be. However, I do like the one meteor I did capture.
Hopefully my camera is working well and the Lyrid shower is providing me a good show. I'll know in a couple of hours.
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