Following on from EE006, another chance to gather in the dark and chat. And I mean dark. The chosen spot in the South Car Park at Spelga Dam and is noted as being one of Ireland's "Dark Skies" locations. If we are lucky with cloud we might get a pretty good look at the night sky. If it follows my usual EE event weather we have a better chance of getting wet. The event will start just after midnight and last at least 30 minutes. If the skies are clear it could stretch much further than that.
So other than the chance to catch up many miles from any coffee, cabernet, comfortable chairs or even "facilities" in there any other reason to turn up ?
Why yes there is. Surely everyone loves the chace to see this iconic TV show from the BBC ? No. Well what about these Shooting Stars instead
Thanks to a presentation by an astronomer I caught recently I became aware that the Lyrid meteor shower happens in the second half of April. This coincides with an almost complete absense of any moon so the sky will be especially dark. So why midnight. Well it wouldnt be an extreme event unless it involved staying up after midnight on a school night would it?
The other reason is that the shower's focal point is the Constellation of Lyra which ideally needs to be above the horizon which wont happen until midnight or so. So will that guarantee you see a shooting star? Nope. Historically the average number of shooting stars is 10-15 an hour although up to 100 have been recorded.
The peak of the shower will actually be 0100 on April 23rd so why pick 20th April as the event day. Well the Northern Lights KP index is 5 and while any forecast beyond 3 days in about as accurate as a sunny day promised by Met Eireann who can resist the possibilty of a 2 for 1.