The radiant of the Delta Aquarid meteors
Discuss Print Me Email to FriendTonight is Friday, Jul 25 2008
The radiant of a meteor shower refers to the point in the sky from which these meteors appear to radiate. If you trace all the Delta Aquarid meteors backward, you’d find the star Delta Aquarii – also called Skat – nearly coinciding with this radiant.
You don’t need to find the meteor shower radiant to watch a shower. What you need is a dark, open sky, for shower meteors streak all across the heavens. For some people, however, it’s great sport to seek out the radiant of a meteor shower.
Our chart shows your southern sky for around 4 in the morning daylight savings time. Drawing a line through the two right-hand stars of the Great Square of Pegasus escorts you to the star Delta Aquarii. This visible yet relatively faint star shines above the brilliant star Fomalhaut. So if you have difficulty locating Delta Aquarii, Fomalhaut serves as a ballpark reference to the radiant.
For the northern hemisphere, the Delta Aquarids are a modest, even if reliable shower, a prelude to the more spectacular August Perseids. The greatest numbers of Delta Aquarids are expected to fall from about 1 a.m. until dawn on July 27, 28 & 29, with minimal to moderate interference from the waning crescent moon.
