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    Adrian Dening's Stars Over Somerset

    Tuesday, 28 April 2026 23:10

    Monday 4th to Sunday 10th May 2026

     

    The morning of Tuesday 5th May sees the peak of the annual Aquariids meteor shower.  At 4am, the constellation of Aquarius, where the radiant point of the shower is located, will be rising above the east south east horizon.

     

                                               

    At its peak, the Aquariids can produce up to a very respectable 55 shooting stars per hour, but don't get too excited as the conditions are not the best for viewing the show - the meteors will be close to the horizon, it will be starting to get light and there will be some light pollution from a waning gibbous Moon off to the south.

     

    I'm going to suggest a couple of challenges for the early morning of Sunday 10th - one for the naked eye and one that will need a telescope.  Look towards the south east at 2am, before the Moon rises above the horizon.  The bright star Altair in the constellation of Aquila should be obvious and if you are in a nice dark location, you should be able to observe what looks like faint cloud to the right of Altair - this isn't cloud at all, but the dim light from millions of distant stars in the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.

     

     

    Below the constellation, it should be possible to observe the comet 10P/Tempel, but this will require a telescope as the comet currently only has a magnitude of around +10

     

     

    10P/Tempel is classed as a Jupiter-family comet because it orbits the Sun every five years or so, rather than longer-period comets that originate from the Kuiper Belt and beyond in the outer reaches of our Solar System and take hundreds of years to complete an orbit.

     

    The comet spends the whole of the month passing under Aquila, so if you miss it on 10th, there will be plenty more opportunities.  Now with all that talk of Milky Ways and Galaxies....I'm off to get a bar of chocolate!

     

    www.starsoversomerset.com

    Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium

    Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2026

     

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