The Lyrid meteor shower hits its peak on the evening of 22 April, or early hours of the 23rd, but you can look for them any time between the 16th and 25th. New Scientist‘s stargazing companion will talk you through what to look for. You can find the audio below or in the podcast episode feed for The world, the universe and us.

Meteors are caused by high-speed debris from space hitting Earth’s atmosphere. These tiny grains of dust or rock enter the atmosphere at such speeds that the friction between them and the air makes them burn up, producing a flash that moves across the sky.

As Earth makes its yearly journey around the sun, it passes through a series of clouds of dust and debris, left behind by comets or asteroids, causing an increase in the number of meteors we see. This is why the same meteor showers happen at similar times each year.

The Lyrids meteor shower is caused by the long-period comet C/1861 G1, also known as Thatcher. Discovered in 1861, Thatcher takes 415 years to orbit the sun. It is expected to return to our part of the solar system around the year 2278.

You don’t need to look in one part of the sky to see a meteor shower. But each one is named after the bit of the sky where the meteors seem to start, or radiate from. In this case, it is the northern hemisphere constellation Lyra, which contains the bright star Vega.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Launchpad

Sign up to newsletter

If you are in the northern hemisphere, you can look for the constellation Lyra. The constellation won’t be visible from the southern hemisphere, but meteors can travel in all directions, so some shooting stars might be visible if you look east.

From the northern hemisphere, Lyra will be in the east just after sunset. If you’re looking a little later, it will be higher up in the sky, making it a better time to look for meteors – although the closer you get to sunrise, the brighter the sky will be.

The easiest way to find Lyra is to look for a pattern of stars known as the Summer Triangle, so named because it is made up of three bright stars in a triangle shape and, in summer in the northern hemisphere, around midnight, it appears directly overhead. At midnight in late April, the three bright stars will appear near the eastern horizon. The highest of these is Vega, and this is in Lyra.

If you’re looking at the peak, and you have clear and dark skies, you could see between 10 and 18 meteors in an hour.

My feelings about the moon changed in the past year, when I gave birth on the day of not just a full moon, but a Harvest Moon.

For the first few months of my son’s life, the passing of time felt very strange – there was little distinction between day and night. But the moon’s almost-monthly cycle was there to remind me that the months were ticking on. Every time I saw a full moon, I knew another 29.5 days had passed by. It was a reminder that my son was around another month older.

It is now almost a year later, and the next full moon is going to be particularly special. On 7 September 2025, there will be a total lunar eclipse.

It will be visible to people in most of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, and parts of South America, too. From where I live, in the UK, the eclipse will begin when the moon is below the horizon, but about 20 minutes later, around 7:30pm, it will become visible and will stay that way until the eclipse finishes.

As I said, the moon orbits Earth every 29.5 days. During a full moon, our planet sits between the moon and the sun, so that the entirety of the moon’s face reflects light back towards Earth.

But because the moon’s orbit is slightly tilted compared with Earth’s around the sun, the three bodies don’t line up in one plane – a phenomenon known as syzygy – during every orbit.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Launchpad

Sign up to newsletter

When syzygy happens during a new moon, we get a solar eclipse. When syzygy occurs during a full moon, there is a total lunar eclipse.

When this happens, the moon moves into a shadow cast by Earth. This is why the moon is always visible during a lunar eclipse – it just appears darker and redder. The only light that still reaches the surface of the moon and is reflected back at us has passed through Earth’s atmosphere, which scatters most of the wavelengths of light except the red ones.

To work out when to see the eclipse, and how much of it will be visible from where you live, you can use . These will give you the best idea of how to view it.

Why does our universe have something instead of nothing?

In order to figure out how something came from nothing, we first need to explore the different types of nothing

Unlike a solar eclipse, you don’t need any special protective equipment to view a lunar eclipse – just a clear sky. Once you know when to look, find the moon and watch it darken and redden (pictured). You might want to see how it looks through some binoculars. If you live in the UK, the moon will be low in the eastern horizon that night, so you will need to find a spot with a clear view to the east.

This specific event is known as a Harvest Blood Moon – “Harvest” because it is the full moon that occurs right before the autumn equinox, and “Blood” because of the moon’s red colour during an eclipse.

I am not sure if he is old enough to appreciate it yet, but I will be taking my son, born on a Harvest Moon, out to show him the total eclipse.

Abigail Beall is a features editor at New Scientist and author of The Art of Urban Astronomy. Follow her @abbybeall

For other projects visit newscientist.com/maker

I have never been to a watch party, unless you count me and two of my friends getting together to watch Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (complete with themed snacks). But now, it seems, I will have my chance – as watch parties are no longer just for new movies. In a few days, I am planning to go along to a watch party for a new telescope.

I was lucky enough to be part of one of the first public groups to visit the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, as part of a New Scientist tour. Now, just over two years later, I can’t wait to see the first images the enormous telescope has captured, which will be released on 23 June.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is an engineering marvel. It is designed to take scans of the entire southern hemisphere sky in just three nights – a huge step up from any previous all-sky surveys. Rubin will scan the sky every night for 10 years, as part of the telescope’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). During that period, the project is expected to revolutionise astronomy, answering long-standing questions about things like dark matter and finding new mysteries altogether.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is about to totally transform astronomy

With the ability to scan the entire southern night sky every three days, the huge Vera C. Rubin Observatory could be about to start solving the mysteries of the universe, from dark matter to Planet Nine

Naturally, the images and videos the telescope will capture are going to be mind-blowing. To truly appreciate their beauty, a phone screen won’t cut it. Nor will a desktop. To get the full definition of each individual image would take 400 ultra-HD TVs, according to the consortium. So, the team has been encouraging its partner institutions around the world to host watch parties, in order to appreciate the images in full definition.

What exactly is going on at each party will vary depending on the institution, many of which will be planetariums, museums or universities. You could watch at the Perth Observatory in Western Australia, for example, or at the City University of Hong Kong. There will be parties all over the US, including at Detroit Observatory in Michigan, where attendees will see science demonstrations and hear from local experts. But the one thing these events will all have in common is that at 11am EDT, which is 4pm BST, the first images and videos taken by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will be published and everyone will watch as they are livestreamed.

It is likely that, with so much detail captured in each image, it will take some time to appreciate them in full detail – zooming out to witness the full field of view of this impressive telescope, but also zooming in to look at galaxies as we have never seen them before. Rubin’s images will be more detailed than even those of the James Webb Space Telescope: its field of view covers the equivalent area of the sky as 45 full moons, while JWST maps about 3 full moons’ worth. There will also be timelapse videos, taken as Rubin watches the sky to see how it changes over time.

Of course, you will see the images online, in copies of New Scientist magazine and all over social media as soon as they are out. But if you want to mark the occasion with something a little more communal, check out to find a watch party near you – or if you can’t make it to one, why not host your own? You won’t be able to see the full definition on your home screen, but at least you can capture some of the excitement of seeing the images and videos around others.

I will be going along to a local event in the hope I can recreate some of the feeling of awe I had when I stood inside the observatory and saw its scale – a scale that, of course, is nothing compared to that of the wider universe, which Rubin will help us understand just that little bit more.

The world capital of astronomy: Chile

Experience the astronomical highlights of Chile. Visit some of the world's most technologically advanced observatories and stargaze beneath some of the clearest skies on earth.

Find out more