How and when to watch the Lyrid meteor shower

After a more than three-month meteor shower drought, you can finally look to the skies again for a cosmic display.

The Lyrid meteor shower is expected to peak, or reach its maximum activity, on Wednesday around 4 p.m. ET, during daylight hours for much of North America, according to the American Meteor Society.

The early-setting, waxing crescent moon will provide a perfectly dark sky in the evening. Onlookers in the Northern Hemisphere will get the best chance to view the celestial show from Tuesday night until dawn Wednesday morning, according to EarthSky.

“Toward dawn the source of the meteors near the constellation Lyra will be overhead for the Northern Hemisphere, whereas below the equator it is very low in the northern sky so a lot of their meteors will be blocked by the horizon,” said Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator with the American Meteor Society.

Lyrid meteors radiate from the star Vega in the constellation Lyra, from which this shower gets its name. It’s easy to spot Vega, even with city lights, as it’s one of the brightest stars in the sky.

Considered a medium strength shower, the Lyrids lack the brightness and abundance that other showers provide. It isn’t known for producing fireballs, and Bill Cooke, lead of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office, said the meteors are going to be moderately fast and faint.

With favorable conditions, Cooke and Lunsford say sky-gazers might see 10 to 20 flashing meteors per hour.

“Your best bet is to hope for drier, transparent air which will allow you to see fainter meteors, which make up this particular shower,” Lunsford said.

The Lyrids can sometimes produce surges of up to 100 meteors per hour, but Lunsford says with about a 60-year period between these particularly active outbursts the next one isn’t expected until 2040.

“It’s possible you’ll go outside and the Lyrids will behave as normal, but it’s also possible you go outside and you’ll see a lot more meteors than expected,” Cooke said.

To set up the optimal viewing experience, Cooke recommends you find the darkest area you can, away from light pollution like city or street lights. He says to lie down on your back, stare straight up and take in as much of the sky as you can. After about 45 minutes, your eyes should adjust, and you’ll start to see meteors.

“Don’t expect to step out of a brightly lit house and expect see anything right away because it does take time for your eyes to dilate and to see the faint meteors,” Lunsford noted.

Most importantly, Cooke says to not look at your phone because the bright screen “destroys your night vision.”

The oldest meteor shower, the Lyrids originated from the comet C/1861 G1, known as Thatcher. The peak of a shower occurs when Earth passes closest to the comet that produces the meteors.

The first recorded sighting of the Lyrid meteor shower dates back to 687 BC, in China, and has been observed for 2,700 years, according to NASA.