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Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 6, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 6, 2014

-First-quarter Moon (exactly so at 11:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). The Moon shines in Cancer above the dim head of Hydra. Well to the Moon's upper left is Regulus, forming the bottom of the Sickle of Leo.

-Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on the night of May 5-6 with as many as 60 meteors per hour in the southern hemisphere and half that number in the north. No matter where you live, the best time to look is during the dark hours before local sunrise on May 6th. [photo gallery] [meteor radar]

Alan Dyer caught this speck of "Halley dust" disintegrating over Portal, Arizona, on May 5th.

"Portal, Arizona, has some of the finest skies on the continent," says Dyer. "Last night I saw several Eta Aquarids in just casual glances skyward as I was busy shooting images of the Milky Way in the pre-dawn hours. This frame nicely caught the entire meteor showing a change of colour in the ionization trail as it descended deeper into our atmosphere, typical of bright meteors."

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 6, 2014

Source:
Our Sun has become quite a busy place. Taken only two weeks ago, the Sun was captured sporting numerous tumultuous regions including active sunspot regions AR 2036 near the image top and AR 2036 near the center. Only four years ago the Sun was emerging from an unusually quiet Solar Minimum that had lasted for years. The above image was recorded in a single color of light called Hydrogen Alpha, inverted, and false colored. Spicules cover much of the Sun's face like a carpet. The gradual brightening towards the Sun's edges is caused by increased absorption of relatively cool solar gas and called limb darkening. Just over the Sun's edges, several filamentary prominences protrude, while prominences on the Sun's face are seen as light streaks. Possibly the most visually interesting of all are the magnetically tangled active regions containing relatively cool sunspots, seen as white dots. Currently at Solar Maximum -- the most active phase in its 11-year magnetic cycle, the Sun's twisted magnetic field is creating numerous solar "sparks" which include eruptive solar prominences, coronal mass ejections, and flares which emit clouds of particles that may impact the Earth and cause auroras. One flare two years ago released such a torrent of charged particles into the Solar System that it might have disrupted satellites and compromised power grids had it struck planet Earth.