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Originally posted by soulforge
crickets...crickets...
The day is half over in the states...
Meteor shower May 22–23?
Jack Drummond of the Starfire Optical Range predicts that debris shed by the comet many years ago (long before the 1995 breakup) could bring us a meteor shower on the night of May 22–23. He writes:
"The closest approach of [Fragment C's] orbit to the Earth, 0.04 astronomical unit, occurs on May 22 at 20:00 UT. Thus the maximum of the meteor shower would be on May 22 or May 23, with a radiant of right ascension 208° [13h 52m] and declination +30° [in Canes Venatici, 12° north-northwest of Arcturus], and a geocentric velocity of 13.5 km/sec, which is quite slow." Unlike with many meteor showers, this radiant is highest in the sky as early in the night as 11 p.m. daylight saving time — so the meteors would be visible any time from dusk to dawn.
If the shower does peak around 20:00 May 22 Universal Time, that would be during the evening of the 22nd for continental Europe, later at night for western Asia, and before dawn on the 23rd for Central and South Asia. But keep watch wherever you are; the shower, if any, could arrive many hours earlier or later than that.
Update May 25: No much meteor shower has been reported.
Sky & Telescope