Quadrantids meteor shower
Next peak: 04 January 2027, 03:00 UTC. Up to 80 meteors an hour under an ideally dark sky.
Named after a constellation that no longer exists: the Mural Quadrant, at the edge of Boötes and Draco. The peak is short, often only a few hours; catch it and you see many meteors. Their source is probably the small body 2003 EH1, an extinct comet.
The radiant lies in the constellation Boötes. The meteors appear all over the sky, though; their trails only point back to it.
Peaks until 2030
| Peak (UTC) | Moon | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| 04 Jan 2027, 03:00 | 12 % | good, little moonlight |
| 04 Jan 2028, 09:00 | 43 % | fair |
| 03 Jan 2029, 15:00 | 89 % | poor, bright moon |
| 03 Jan 2030, 21:00 | 0 % | good, little moonlight |
Moon: how much of its disc is lit. The nights before and after the peak are often hardly weaker.
When you see the most
- London: around 06:30 local time, the radiant 71° up
- New York: around 06:15 local time, the radiant 66° up
- Sydney: the radiant does not rise in the dark that night
Best far from lights; give your eyes a quarter of an hour to adapt, no binoculars, with as much sky in view as possible. The higher the radiant, the more meteors.