IMO Meteor Shower Calendar 2005

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The year’s most moonless major shower maxima are the η-Aquarids in early May, and the Perseids in mid-August. Lesser sources, including the α-Centaurids, the July-August Aquarid-Capricornid showers, the α- and δ- Aurigids, and the various minor early-December showers, are reasonably free from moonlight too. Unfortunately, this leaves the other two of the “big three” major shower peaks – the Quadrantids and Geminids – badly moonlit. Of the sources worth checking-up on, the possible June Lyrid and June Boötid epochs will be partly moonlit, and thus difficult, but the Taurids in October-November are Moon-free, in a potential Taurid Complex meteoroid ‘swarm’ return year. There are also the badly moonlit α-Monocerotids, a decade on from their most recent outburst. Do not forget that monitoring of meteor activity should ideally be carried on throughout the rest of the year, however! We appreciate that this is not practical for many observers, and this Calendar was first devised back in 1991 as a means of helping observers deal with reality by highlighting times when a particular effort might most usefully be employed. Although we include timing predictions for all the more active night-time and daytime shower maxima, based on the best available data, please note that in many cases, such maxima are not known more precisely than to the nearest 1° of solar longitude (even less accurately for the daytime radio showers, which have only recently begun to receive regular attention again). In addition, variations in individual showers from year to year mean past returns are at best only a guide as to when even major shower peaks can be expected, plus as some showers are known to show particle mass-sorting within their meteoroid streams, the radio, telescopic, video, visual and photographic meteor maxima may occur at different times from one another, and not necessarily just in these showers. The majority of data available are for visual shower maxima, so this must be borne in mind when employing other observing techniques.