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WeatherLive › Moon › Meteor showers

Meteor Shower Tonight — 2026 Calendar

Peak nights, expected rates and where to look. Rates below are the theoretical maximum under a perfectly dark sky; moonlight and city lights cut them sharply, so check the moon phase before setting an alarm.

Next peak
☄️ Draconids
Thursday, October 8 · up to 10 meteors/hour · radiant in Draco

Unusual in that it is best in the evening, not after midnight. Moon on that night: 🌘 Waning Crescent, 7% lit — favourable dark skies.

The peak night, hour by hour

Thu, Oct 8 · Columbus · local time
~8
meteors an hour at best
9:00 PM, radiant 55° up
Radiant altitude Moon Astronomical night
90° 60° 30° 0° Radiant Moon 6 PM 8 PM 10 PM 12 AM 2 AM 4 AM 6 AM 6:00 PM — radiant 76°, still twilight, Moon below the horizon 6:30 PM — radiant 74°, still twilight, Moon below the horizon 7:00 PM — radiant 72°, still twilight, Moon below the horizon 7:30 PM — radiant 68°, still twilight, Moon below the horizon 8:00 PM — radiant 64°, still twilight, Moon below the horizon 8:30 PM — radiant 60°, still twilight, Moon below the horizon 9:00 PM — radiant 55°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 8 meteors/hour 9:30 PM — radiant 51°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 8 meteors/hour 10:00 PM — radiant 47°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 7 meteors/hour 10:30 PM — radiant 42°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 7 meteors/hour 11:00 PM — radiant 38°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 6 meteors/hour 11:30 PM — radiant 34°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 6 meteors/hour 12:00 AM — radiant 30°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 5 meteors/hour 12:30 AM — radiant 26°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 4 meteors/hour 1:00 AM — radiant 23°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 4 meteors/hour 1:30 AM — radiant 19°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 3 meteors/hour 2:00 AM — radiant 16°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 3 meteors/hour 2:30 AM — radiant 13°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 2 meteors/hour 3:00 AM — radiant 11°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 2 meteors/hour 3:30 AM — radiant 9°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 1 meteors/hour 4:00 AM — radiant 7°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 1 meteors/hour 4:30 AM — radiant 6°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 1 meteors/hour 5:00 AM — radiant 5°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 1 meteors/hour 5:30 AM — radiant 4°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 1 meteors/hour 6:00 AM — radiant 4°, sky fully dark, Moon below the horizon — about 1 meteors/hour 6:30 AM — radiant 4°, still twilight, Moon below the horizon 7:00 AM — radiant 5°, still twilight, Moon 5° up

How high the Draconids radiant climbs above your horizon on the night of October 8, computed for Columbus — no two cities get the same curve. You see roughly the shower's headline rate multiplied by the sine of that altitude, so height is most of the answer. None of it counts until the sky is astronomically dark — the shaded band. The Moon rises at 6:30 AM and stays up past dawn — new, so no glare at all. 0° is the horizon, 90° straight overhead.

Hour by hour, in numbers
TimeRadiantMoonSkyRate
6:00 PM 76° down twilight 0
7:00 PM 72° down twilight 0
8:00 PM 64° down twilight 0
9:00 PM 55° down dark ~8
10:00 PM 47° down dark ~7
11:00 PM 38° down dark ~6
12:00 AM 30° down dark ~5
1:00 AM 23° down dark ~4
2:00 AM 16° down dark ~3
3:00 AM 11° down dark ~2
4:00 AM 7° down dark ~1
5:00 AM 5° down dark ~1
6:00 AM 4° down dark ~1
7:00 AM 5° 5° · 2% twilight 0

All major showers

peak dates repeat within a day each year
Jan 3 ☄️ Quadrantids — Sharp peak lasting only a few hours — the narrowest window of any major shower.
110/hr
Apr 22 ☄️ Lyrids — The oldest recorded shower — Chinese records go back to 687 BC.
18/hr
May 5 ☄️ Eta Aquariids — Debris from Halley's Comet; best seen from the southern US before dawn.
50/hr
Jul 30 ☄️ Delta Aquariids — Faint but steady — overlaps with the build-up to the Perseids.
20/hr
Aug 12 ☄️ Perseids — The summer classic: warm nights, bright fireballs, up to 100 an hour.
100/hr
Oct 8 ☄️ Draconids — Unusual in that it is best in the evening, not after midnight.
10/hr
Oct 21 ☄️ Orionids — The second shower from Halley's Comet, with fast, bright meteors.
20/hr
Nov 5 ☄️ Southern Taurids — Low rates but famous for slow-moving fireballs.
5/hr
Nov 12 ☄️ Northern Taurids — The northern branch of the Taurid stream — more fireballs.
5/hr
Nov 17 ☄️ Leonids — Produces spectacular storms roughly every 33 years.
15/hr
Dec 14 ☄️ Geminids — The best shower of the year — bright, multicoloured, active all night.
120/hr
Dec 22 ☄️ Ursids — A quiet finale to the year, close to the winter solstice.
10/hr
How to watch
You need no equipment at all — binoculars and telescopes narrow the field of view and actually hurt. Get away from streetlights, give your eyes twenty minutes to adapt, lie back and take in as much sky as you can. Most showers are best between midnight and dawn, when your side of Earth turns into the debris stream. Clear skies matter more than anything: check the cloud forecast for your city before you go, and the moon phase — a full moon can cut visible counts by three quarters.
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Updated: 11:57 PM