Up for a challenge? The Daytime Sextantids meteor shower peaks soon, but you'll only have a brief window to catch one of its elusive shooting stars. Here's what you need to know.
The Daytime Sextantids are active from Sept. 22 to Oct. 13 as Earth passes through a trail of interplanetary debris whose parent body has yet to be conclusively identified. However, a lack of data makes the exact timings for the Daytime Sextantids peak relatively difficult to pin down.
Predictions place maximum activity between late September and early October, with In The Sky listing Sept. 27 as the peak while Robert Lunsford, fireball reporter for the American Meteor Society, estimates peak activity between Sept. 30 and Oct. 4.
Meteors belonging to the shower appear to streak away from a point of origin, or radiant, in the constellation Sextans, located roughly 30 degrees from the sun. As a result, most Daytime Sextantids meteors are hidden by daylight, making the shower much easier to detect using radio techniques than with the naked eye.
However, up to 5 meteors could be spotted brightening the night sky in the hour preceding dawn in the window of peak activity around Sept. 27, when the radiant will reach its highest point before sunrise hides the shower from view.
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"Potential observers should face eastwards about half-way up in the sky," Lunsford told Space.com in an email. "They should look for medium velocity meteors shooting upward from the eastern horizon and also sideways toward the north and south. All of these meteors would be earthgrazers with long trails lasting several seconds."
Lunsford also cautioned that the moon will be in its waning gibbous phase during the Daytime Sextanids observation window, casting a veil of moonlight over the early morning sky that could lower the number of visible meteors.
"This means it will be high in the southern sky during the last hour of night during this period," continued Lunsford. "You should move your gaze northward to keep the moon out of your field of view. It may obscure the faintest meteors, but will not be a major nuisance."
Want to capture gorgeous photos of the next big meteor shower? Then be sure to read our guide to photographing shooting stars, along with our picks of the best lenses and cameras for capturing the night sky.
Editor's Note: If you would like to share your images of shooting stars with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
