April 2004

March Winds Bring April Meteor Shower

April 2004 : By Dave Huestis

This year the Lyrid meteor shower occurs just a couple of days after New Moon. The waxing crescent will set around 10:00 pm and will therefore not hinder observing even the faintest of the Lyrid members.

See a "Dirty Snowball" in April

April 2004 : By Dave Huestis

As the title of this column may hint, it is not uncommon to get a late snowstorm in early April here in southern New England. I, for one, hope we have seen the last of the frozen precipitation for this season. However, a keen-eyed observer can catch a glimpse of a cosmic dirty snowball of gas, dust and ice 138,570,000 miles away from us and closing during the second week of April.