Letters to the Editor

LETTERS
Sky’s perfect entertainment From: Ken Reynolds Columbus Received: April 23 The groups that I hang with ... the Columbus Local Group of Astronomers and the Indiana Astronomical League ... navigate the night sky as well as truckers navigate the interstates. Me on the other hand goes more like this; I jumped out of bed at 4:30 this morning so I could watch the the teor shower which generally begins on April 16 and ends on April 26, with maximum generally occurring during the night of April 21/22. At maximum, hourly rates can reach about 10 meteors per hour. At 5:29 a.m., I saw my first and only meteor, but it was spectacular. The dust trail was like 2 feet wide and the length about 4 feet long and lasting about two seconds. The Lyrids are particularly interesting for two reason. First, observations have been identified back to at least 2,600 years, which is longer than any other meteor shower. Second, the meteor shower occasionally experiences an outburst of about 100 meteors per hour and the reason is basically unknown. At 5:46 a.m. I watched and Venus rise in the east. Straight overhead was Cygnus the Swan and Lyra a constellation. Its name derived from the lyre, a stringed musical instrument. How do I know all of this? Unlike my collegues, I rely heavily on a software program called Starry Night. If I look at something in the sky and do not recognize it, I run into the house and go to that part of the sky on Starry Night, which always has the current sky. So, back and forth, back and forth. My wife is always asking me, why don’t you take your laptop out on the patio so you don’t have to keep running back and forth. DOH!