This annual meteor shower should be at its best in the night of October 7 to 8.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
A “shooting star” that you see in any part of the sky betrays itself as a Draconid, a “child of the dragon,” if its path, traced backward, comes from the “head” of Draco, the huge constellation that winds half way around the north pole of the sky. The “radiant” is the point or small area in Draco’s head from which meteors of this stream seen to fly out.
They are actually in almost parallel courses, and are fragments shed from periodic Comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner, which comes around each 6.6 years and last visited in September 2018. They follow roughly in its orbit, and descend through the plane of Earth’s orbit (the ecliptic) from high to the north. So they can be observed all through the night (in our northern hemisphere) – in contrast with many other major showers which are almost confined to the hours after midnight.
At the time and place of our picture, the radiant is 35 degree above the horizon. Revolving around the Pole Star, it will swing down toward midnight, then up again in the morning hours.
Moonlight can drown meteor light, and this factor is not ideal this time. The Moon is about 10° high at picture time and will get higher, and it was Full on October 1; but it is far over to the east.
How many meteors might you see? The ZHR or zenithal hourly rate of the Draconids is estimated at about 20. But this means the number that one alert observer should see at the peak time and in ideal sky conditions, and with the radiant overhead (which it isn’t unless you’re at latitude 54° north). So you may not count so many; or you may be lucky; and this meteor stream is known for producing some that are bright enough to be called fireballs.
Meteor streams are millions of miles wide in space, so our planet can take days to plow through them, and fringe members of the stream may be seen over a span of nights from about October 6 to 10 – so you may already have seen some!
Bundle up well, if you plan to watch for any length of time. It’s autumn.
And keep your face mask on if you call out about a Draconid to any passers-by! Meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but virus-bearing droplets don’t.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after positing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version.
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