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The annual Lyrid Meteor shower started last week on Saturday and will be most visible when it peaks Friday, April 22. A peak meteor shower is the time of maximum activity and the moment when the most meteors are visible and 10-20 Lyrids per hour can be expected under ideal conditions.

The April shooting stars are expected to last till April 25 but the best time for stargazers to watch spectacular show would be sometime between Thursday midnight and dawn of Friday.

However, with full moon coming Thursday, April 21, into Friday, April 22, which will illuminate the night sky, greatly reduces our chances of spotting many of the meteors.

Stargazers worldwide are still gearing up for the event, but you can catch the eye catching phenomena through live streaming the whole event directly from your home. Slooh space telescope will livestream the event which will be broadcast from 8pm EDT on 23 April and can be viewed below.

Or in case you would like to see the event for real by going outside, remember to gaze towards the East to view the shooting stars from the Lyrids. People located in Northern Hemisphere are best placed to view the Lyrids show but even those situated in the mid Southern Hemisphere would be able to witness the shower.

So if interested find an area well away from city or street lights. Come prepared with a sleeping bag, blanket or lawn chair and lie flat on your back with your feet facing east and look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. After about 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors. Be patient — the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.

Ideally, on a moonless sky, during the peak, of shower one might be able to observe around 10 to 20 shooting stars per hour, but conditions are quite unfavorable this time.

Or you could get lucky get to see a meteor outburst which happens when Earth glides through an unusually dense clump of debris from Comet Thatcher, and the rate of shower increases. Sky watchers in 1982, for instance, counted 90 Lyrids per hour.

The April Lyrids are considered one of the oldest meteor showers known to mankind, the records of which go back for some 2,700 years. The ancient Chinese are said to have observed the Lyrid meteors “falling like rain” in the year 687 BC.

Lyrid meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Lyra – the Harp – near the bright star Vegas which from where it gets its name. The meteors are bits and pieces of the Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1), the trail of which the Earth passes through each April. They slam into the Earth’s atmosphere at about 110,000 miles per hour, producing medium- to fast-moving meteor streams. Comet Thatcher was discovered on 5 April 1861 by A. E. Thatcher.