By Gabriella Payne
Ever wished upon a shooting star?
Well if you wake up early enough on Friday morning, you just might have that chance, as a meteor shower is set to light up the sky.
Astronomy enthusiasts are looking forward to the annual Eta Aquariid meteor shower, which will see hundreds of shooting stars flash across the night sky – with its peak expected to be some time on the night of Thursday 6 May/ early Friday 7 May.
Nerida Langcake, the secretary of the Mornington Peninsula Astronomical Society, explained a bit about the natural phenomenon and said that the Eta Aquariid meteor shower “is caused by the dust left over from Halley’s Comet entering our atmosphere and vaporising”.
“The meteors appear to be coming from a point near the star Eta Aquarii, in Aquarius, and tend to be quite fast moving,” Ms Langcake explained.
“The further south you are, the better view of the shower you will get,” she said, adding that observers could “expect to see roughly 30 meteors an hour” if very lucky.
“All you really need is a clear sky, lots of patience, and preferably a viewing spot away from the city lights.”
The president of the Mt Burnett Observatory, James Murray, said that he believed the meteor shower’s peak would happen some time “just before dawn” on Friday 7 May.
Mr Murray said that the meteors, which appear as shooting stars, “should be quite visible” and described them as looking like “very swift, yellow colour streaks across the sky”.
“It could be worth getting up early for,” Mr Murray said.
“The trick is to go outside and give yourself about 10 minutes for your eyes to get accustomed to the dark, then find something like a banana lounge to lie on and just look up,” he said.
Whilst the Eta Aquariid meteor shower would be a great spectacle for people to view, Mr Murray said that the team at the Mt Burnett Observatory were really looking forward to an upcoming lunar eclipse, which would be occurring on Wednesday 26 May.
“Anyone who’s living in Pakenham should be able to view the eclipse from their backyard,” Mr Murray said, adding that the observatory team would be live streaming the eclipse on their Facebook and YouTube pages.
Ms Langcake encouraged any budding astronomers to be on the lookout for the meteors early Friday morning and recommended using some modern technology to help navigate the skies.
“The easiest method in finding the location of constellations is to simply download a free app to your phone, such as Stellarium, Sky Map, SkySafari or Star Walk 2,” she said.
“Once installed, just hold your phone up and explore the night sky, identify stars, constellations, planets, clusters, and so on.”
The Mornington Peninsula Astronomical Society will also be holding a special science week event on Friday 20 August, called ‘shooting stars in the natural environment’.
The event will involve a public talk sharing information about “local meteorite falls, their history and local significance” as well as attendees having the opportunity to hold what was once a shooting star “older than the Earth itself” before finishing the night with some star gazing.
For more information about amateur astronomy and how to get involved, visit https://mbo.org.au/ or https://www.mpas.asn.au/
