Meteor showers · annual
Meteor showers, by the year.
Ten major showers with peak dates, parent bodies, radiant constellations, and the moon's illumination at peak (bright moon ruins viewing).
The year of meteors
Activity windows for each major shower across the year. Coloured by ZHR family; the bar inside each shower is the peak night.
Each shower in detail
How to watch
- After midnight
- Earth sweeps face-on into the meteor stream after midnight local time, so the hourly rate roughly doubles in the small hours.
- Dark sky
- Light pollution cuts visible meteors by 75% in suburbs and 95% in cities. Even ~30 minutes outside the urban glow makes a dramatic difference.
- Avoid the moon
- A full moon at peak roughly halves the count. Check the "moon at peak" badge on each shower below — under ~30% is good, over ~70% is rough.
- No telescope
- Meteors streak across tens of degrees; binoculars and telescopes have too-narrow a field. Just lie on your back and look up.
- Adapt your eyes
- 20 minutes in the dark before counting. Phone screens reset this in a heartbeat — keep them off, or use red-light mode.
- ZHR ≠ what you'll see
- Zenith Hourly Rate is the theoretical maximum under perfect skies with the radiant overhead. Most observers see a fraction of that — half is typical, a quarter is common.