Eta Aquarid meteor shower 2021: What you can expect to see

If you can brave the early hours of the next few mornings, you may catch a meteor streaking across the sky.

The beginning of May marks one of the best meteor showers of the year: the Eta Aquarids.

The meteor shower is created as Earth passes through the dust trail laid down over thousands of years by Halley’s Comet.

Unlike most meteor showers, such as the recent Lyrids, the Eta Aquarids usually puts on a consistently good light show that can be seen in the southern hemisphere.

“The meteors tend to be faster and they tend to have a higher number of bright meteors,” amateur astronomer Ian Musgrave says.

This year, the meteor shower will be affected by moonlight, so you’ll see fewer meteors than in previous years.

But with Jupiter and Saturn also in the sky, “it is still going to be beautiful no matter what,” Dr Musgrave says.

Where and when to look

The shower peaks on May 6 (when it goes through the centre of the debris stream), but you’ll see more meteors in the early hours of the following three days because of where the Moon is in the sky.

The best time to see them fanning out from a spot above the north-eastern horizon is between 3:00am and 5:00am each day.

“People with dark skies should see a meteor around every three to four minutes,” Dr Musgrave says.

It will be trickier to see them on the mornings of May 6 and 7, because they’ll be very close to the waning crescent moon.

“The moon is going to mess with your night vision,” he says.

You could try to block out the Moon with a tree or a building, but that will also reduce the amount of sky you can scan.

Instead, he advises, it may be better to wait until early Saturday or Sunday morning to check them out.

“On the 8th, the Moon is a much thinner crescent, and it is much lower on the horizon,” Dr Musgrave says.

“So even though the actual peak has passed, the moonlight interference is much lower.”

What will you see where you live?

The number of meteors you could see will depend on where you live.

The further north you are, the higher the rate per hour. 

But it also depends upon what time you go outside.

The later you go out, the more meteors you’ll see, despite the Moon.

According to Dr Musgrave’s calculations, here’s what you may see when the point that the meteors come from is highest in the sky:

Location	May 6 (peak)	May 7	May 8	May 9	May 10
Adelaide	11/hr	14/hr	16/hr	15/hr	9/hr
Brisbane	11/hr	15/hr	17/hr	16/hr	14/hr
Canberra	11/hr	14/hr	16/hr	15/hr	14/hr
Darwin	12/hr	16/hr	18/hr	17/hr	15/hr
Hobart	10/hr	13/hr	16/hr	15/hr	13/hr
Melbourne	10/hr	13/hr	16/hr	15/hr	14/hr
Perth	11/hr	15/hr	17/hr	15/hr	14/hr
Sydney	11/hr	14/hr	17/hr	15/hr	14/hr

The meteor point in the constellation of Aquarius rises above the horizon around 2:00am, but the number of meteors is very low.

For example,  on May 9, you’d only see about 1.5 meteors an hour from Darwin (which has the best rates) ,even though the Moon is yet to rise.

But if you go out about 4:00-5:00am, the number increases to between 12 and 16 meteors an hour, even though the Moon is now also above the horizon.

To see the meteors, scan the entire sky above the north-east horizon.

“You’ll see the bright planets Saturn and Jupiter in the centre of your field of view between the only two obvious bright stars in the north-east, Altair and Fomalhaut,” Dr Musgrave says.

If you live in a dark sky area, you’ll also get a better view of not only the meteor shower, but the Milky Way stretching up to the left.

Gallery: The Pink Super Moon and other anticipated astronomical events of 2021 (StarsInsider)