Tau Herculids

When the dew Herculids is a meteor stream, which is active until June 19, on 19 May. Usually has this meteor shower whose parent body is the comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, a low activity of about 2 meteors per hour. The best time to look is the first half of the night, as his Radiant is of central European latitudes from almost overhead.

As the comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann was discovered in 1930, indicated the preliminary results of the orbit determination of comets suggest that an increased number of meteors was possible. In observations 59 meteors and on June 10, have been spotted 36 meteors in 30 minutes on 9 June 1930 in an hour. The radiant was at a right ascension of 15h44m and declination of 41 °. However, only a few tau Herculids were seen in later years.

In May 2006 happened 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, the Earth's orbit in about 0.07 AE. Although this distance was too great for actually increased activity, the current taken from the most shattering the source body was carefully monitored. However, it was found only a low rate of tau Herculids.

Projections for the years 2022 and 2049 indicate, however, that there could be considerably higher rates because the Earth's orbit intersects with previously released material from comets Schwassmann - guard 3.