Radiant of the Southern Delta Aqaurid meteor shower. |
The month's best performer is the Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower, which ordinarily delivers 15 to 20 meteors for every hour. Sadly, the shower peaks the morning of July 30th, one day preceding the month's second full moon. The event does keep up its crest level for a few days so meteor watchers will get a better show on the off chance that they observe within the hour or two in the middle of moonset and the beginning of morning dusk of July 27th and the 28th. The Delta Aquariids get their name because their radiant appears to lie in the constellation Aquarius, near one of the constellation's brightest stars, Delta Aquarii. There are two branches of the Delta Aquariid meteor shower, Southern and Northern. The Southern Delta Aquariids are considered a strong shower. The shower originated from the breakup of what are now the Marsden and Kracht Sungrazing comets. Meteor showers can provide fun for astronomy education projects such as visual meteor observing as described in last April's post, "Methods for Observing the Lyrid Meteor Shower".
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