We have delightfully dark night skies -- so watching meteor showers is a thrill!
But, it's annoying to have to hunt down information as to where to watch (i.e., where the radiant will be at particular times of the night).
There's a FOSS app -- Stellarium -- that is remarkably detailed in its modeling of the heavens. It's also amusing to see an application that is almost entirely "math (driven)".
FWIW
I (being completely illiterate when it comes to astronomy) use this site,
Lucy had discovered it; they have (under "sun and moon") also some nice maps to see which planet where/when to look for etc.
Discovered Jupiter can actually be seen in the night sky, very bright indeed (why I thought it could not is beyond me). Saturn is also visible (from here) at the moment, Mars was visible last summer and it was reddish indeed...
Tried to set the location for you for a minute or so, was not that easy so you'll have to wrestle that yourself :-).
I've never found the radiant to be of any help in spotting meteor(ite)s. The streaks appear anywhere in the sky, albeit /pointing/ to the radiant.
Yes. But, when the radiant is below the horizon, it leaves you with little chance to find them other than originating from that point BELOW the horizon. And, they're not going to be heading TOWARDS it!
[It also tells you when standing outside, searching, is likely a foolhardy exercise!]Thankfully, the neighbors behind us removed their 75 ft pines which opens up a lot more of the sky to easy observation!
A rough heuristic is that you are best off watching after midnight with peak rates occurring just before dawn. That way you get to see meteors at the highest rate since the stream is coming towards us and the Earth is moving toward the meteor stream. In the evening the only meteors you will see are the ones that can overtake the Earth in its orbit (which may still be a good fraction of them).
Moonlight hides a lot of faint meteors so moonless nights are better.
It is a lovely programme and can be persuaded to simulate meteors too! Try zooming in on the planets.
I put together a collection of links for basic Stargazing from when I did popular astronomy talks and star gazing nights (suspended due to Covid). Its a bit dated now but most of the links should still work.
Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote in news:skfgem$hg6$1@dont- email.me:
I've used it for years. Even before it was called that.
Great app.
I had gigabytes of hi resolution Earth and Moon model add-ons. Knew where every Moon landing site is at. Had one with every satellite and one that even showed the debris cloud(s) orbiting us.
Then Mars. Got a bunch of that. Haven't done much in a while though.
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