The annual Lyrid shower

[abby]

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/objects/images/lyrid-radiantxxl.jpg
http://www.chagrinvalleyastronomy.org/Meteor_Shower.jpg


Anyone who enjoys watching the sky for "shooting stars" will have an opportunity to observe an old and reliable meteor display over the next several days: the April Lyrids. The best time to watch will be for a night or two around the peak, April 22.

These meteors are among the oldest known, with ancient records of them dating back nearly 27 centuries. The Lyrid meteor shower is also the first significant meteor shower to appear since the beginning of the year. While it won't produce a storm of meteors, it's a respectable show for those who are patient.

"The annual Lyrid shower . . . has always been my favorite," says NASA meteor expert Peter Jenniskens. "After the low (meteor) rates in the cold months of February and March, this shower is the proverbial swallow of spring for observers in the northern hemisphere."


http://www.space.com/spacewatch/lyrid-meteor-shower-100416.html

[Gizz-Moes]

Living out in the country away from the city lights I am fortunate to view many meteor. showers.
A few weeks back I saw a large meteor over WI, it turned the night to day for a few seconds.

This is a C&P, videos of this are available on the internet.

Gizz

C&P:
Meteor treats viewers to spectacular light show.
Tony Hamilton and his wife, Nancy, were just outside King on Wednesday night, nearing his mother-in-law's home on the Chain O'Lakes near Waupaca, when the sky lit up.

"It was really wild. It really blew us out," said Hamilton, who is retired and lives in California. "I've seen meteor showers, but this one was at the tree tops. We really thought it was going to land. It was just gigantic. It was incredible."
The Associated Press reported the meteor that streaked across the Midwestern sky momentarily turned night into day, rattled houses and caused trees and the ground to shake. No reports were made of injuries.

Radar information suggests the meteor landed in the southwest corner of Wisconsin, either Grant or Lafayette counties, said Ashley Sears, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Milwaukee office. Officials in both counties said no one reported seeing a meteor or crater.

Anyone who missed the show Wednesday night that was seen from Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and as far away as St. Louis, doesn't have much of a chance to see another one.

Meteor showers will be visible if the sky is clear the next few nights, but to see another one this large is a long shot, said Michael Briley, a physics professor and astronomer at the University of Wisconsin- Oshkosh.

"To run into something as large as this is kind of a surprise," he said. "The odds of seeing something like this are (unlikely); you might as well play the lottery."

Officials said the fireball that lit the sky was large enough to show up on weather radar in Iowa and photographed by a University of Wisconsin space lab from the school's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
A Howard County, Iowa sheriff's deputy also captured the exploding fireball on video, and dispatchers in the Outagamie County Communications Center said they received about 20 calls on the sky show between 10 and 10:15 p.m.

"It had to at least gotten to within a few thousand feet of the ground for (Iowa weather radar) to pick it up," said Rich Mamrosh, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Green Bay. "There must have been a debris cloud behind it at least a half-mile wide or a mile wide to pick it up."

Mamrosh said some part of the meteorite may have hit the ground.

"It is unusual for a meteorite (to be) bigger than a big rock," he said.

Forecasters said a meteor shower called gamma virginids is occurring through Wednesday.

Despite the light show it put on, Briley said the meteor was probably about the size of a human head.

"It most likely disintegrated," he said. "If it did originate with the comets it would probably look like a normal rock."