14 DAY TRIAL // The Lyrid meteor shower will peak this weekend, in the morning of April 22 and 23.
The Lyrids are a strong meteor shower lasting from April 15th to April 28th each year. The radiant of the meteor shower is located in the constellation Lyra. It peaks at April 22th. The source of the meteor shower is the periodic Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher.
The Lyrids have been observed for the past 2600 years. The shower on May 22nd, 687 BC (according to the Julian calendar extrapolated to dates prior to its first adoption) was recorded in Zuo Zhuan, which describes the shower as "On day [...] of month 4 in the summer (of year 7 of King Zhuang of Lu), at night, fixed stars are invisible, at midnight, stars dropped down like rain."
Discovered in 1861, Thatcher takes 415 years to orbit the Sun, venturing almost four times farther than Pluto's orbit at one end and a bit closer to the Sun than Earth at the other.
From a dark site, free of the sky glow produced by city lights, about 10 to 15 meteors per hour should be visible at the peak of the shower.
But there is a small chance for the Lyrids to put on a much stronger display. The stream of debris is not spread evenly along the comet's orbit, so in any given year, the Earth could pass through a particularly dense clump and produce a spectacular shower.
And we can say that the moon - space bane of meteor watchers for its tendency to wash out all but the brightest meteors - will be approaching the first quarter phase during the shower's peak. That means it'll set in the middle of the night, leaving the hours before dawn dark for watching meteors. That's a good thing. You do not need to stare directly at Lyra - the meteors will appear all over the sky, although their paths will seem to point back towards this constellation. Find somewhere to either lie down or stretch out on a lawn chair so you can look up without straining your neck.
The Lyrids will likely provide the best meteor display until the 13th of August Perseid meteors.