Meteor showers: when to watch and from where
The next major shower is the Delta Aquariids, peaking on 30 July 2026, 5 days from now, with the moon 100% lit that night. Whether a shower is worth staying up for depends on your latitude and the moon as much as the shower itself, and both are worked out below.
How to use this
- Find the next shower in the first table, and check the moon column: above roughly 40 per cent lit, most meteors are washed out.
- Then check the second table for how high that shower climbs from your latitude. Below 20 degrees it is rarely worth staying up.
- Go out after midnight and before dawn, when your side of Earth faces into the debris.
Worth knowing: Rates are ideal-sky ceilings, not forecasts, and real counts from a normal location are a fraction of them.
| shower | next peak | rate | moon that night |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Aquariids from comet 96P/Machholz | 30 July 2026 in 5 days | up to 25/h | 100% lit full moon, will wash out fainter meteors |
| Perseids from comet Swift-Tuttle | 12 August 2026 in 18 days | up to 100/h | 2% lit waning crescent, dark enough |
| Orionids from comet Halley | 21 October 2026 in 88 days | up to 20/h | 73% lit waxing gibbous, will wash out fainter meteors |
| Leonids from comet Tempel-Tuttle | 17 November 2026 in 115 days | up to 15/h | 47% lit first quarter, will wash out fainter meteors |
| Geminids from asteroid 3200 Phaethon | 14 December 2026 in 142 days | up to 150/h | 22% lit waxing crescent, dark enough |
| Ursids from comet 8P/Tuttle | 22 December 2026 in 150 days | up to 10/h | 95% lit waxing gibbous, will wash out fainter meteors |
| Quadrantids from asteroid 2003 EH1 | 3 January 2027 in 162 days | up to 110/h | 26% lit waning crescent, dark enough |
| Lyrids from comet Thatcher | 22 April 2027 in 271 days | up to 18/h | 99% lit full moon, will wash out fainter meteors |
| Eta Aquariids from comet Halley | 6 May 2027 in 285 days | up to 50/h | 0% lit new moon, dark enough |
How high the radiant climbs from your latitude
A shower can only deliver what your horizon allows. The higher its radiant rises where you are, the more of the sky is available for meteors to appear in. Below 20 degrees a shower is usually disappointing; below zero it never rises at all.
| shower | Oslo | London | New York | Singapore | Sydney |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quadrantids | 79° | 88° | 82° | 42° | 7° |
| Lyrids | 64° | 73° | 83° | 57° | 22° |
| Eta Aquariids | 29° | 38° | 48° | 88° | 57° |
| Delta Aquariids | 14° | 23° | 33° | 73° | 72° |
| Perseids | 88° | 84° | 73° | 33° | never up |
| Orionids | 46° | 55° | 65° | 75° | 40° |
| Leonids | 52° | 61° | 71° | 69° | 34° |
| Geminids | 63° | 72° | 82° | 58° | 23° |
| Ursids | 74° | 66° | 55° | 15° | never up |
Highest the radiant reaches, from the shower's declination and each latitude. Teal is a good view, amber is low and poor, grey never rises.
Three things decide whether you see anything
Most meteor guides publish a peak date and stop there, which is why so many people go out and see nothing. The date is the least useful of the three factors that matter.
The first is your latitude. A shower's radiant sits at a fixed declination, and how high it climbs for you is simply the difference between that and where you stand. The Eta Aquariids radiate from near the celestial equator and sweep high across southern skies while barely clearing the horizon in Scandinavia. The Ursids sit at 76 degrees north and never rise at all for most of the southern hemisphere.
The second is the moon, and it is brutal. A gibbous moon near the peak lifts the sky background enough to erase everything except the brightest few meteors. A shower with a ZHR of 100 under a full moon can easily deliver fewer visible meteors than a quiet shower under a new moon, which is why the moon column above matters more than the rate column next to it.
The third is simply darkness. Around midsummer at high latitudes the sky never gets properly dark, so a July shower is effectively cancelled in northern Norway however high its radiant climbs. The midnight sun page shows where that applies right now, and each city's sun page gives the astronomical twilight picture for the night you are planning.
Put together: pick a shower whose radiant is high where you live, check that the moon is under half lit, and go out in the hours before dawn. That combination beats chasing whichever shower happens to have the biggest headline number.
Sources and last check
Times, offsets and sun positions on this page are computed live from the IANA timezone database and the NOAA solar algorithm, so they do not depend on the review dates below.
- Countdown events
- Source: Fixed calendar dates; the 2027 eclipse instant from published eclipse canon. Last checked, reviewed every 6 months.
FAQ
Why can't I see some showers from where I live?
Each shower radiates from a fixed point on the sky. If that point sits far from your latitude it stays low or never rises at all, and meteors are cut off by the horizon. The Eta Aquariids, for example, are excellent from Sydney and poor from Oslo.
How much does the moon matter?
A great deal. A full moon near the peak washes out all but the brightest meteors and can turn a rich shower into a disappointing night. The table lists the moon's illumination on each peak night for exactly that reason.
What is ZHR?
Zenithal hourly rate: the count an observer would see under a perfectly dark sky with the radiant straight overhead. It is a ceiling, not a forecast. Real counts from a normal location are usually a fraction of it.
When is the best time of night?
Usually after midnight and before dawn, when your side of Earth faces into its orbital path and sweeps up debris head-on. That is also when the radiant tends to be highest.