December 28 – January 12 · Boötes
Quadrantids
A brief, sharp new-year peak
Don't miss the Quadrantids peak.
Free — one push the evening a shower peaks, and only when the sky is clear.
See the Quadrantids from your location
See the exact local peak time and how high the radiant climbs from where you are.
What is the Quadrantids meteor shower?
One of the year's strongest showers, but its peak lasts only a few hours, so timing is everything. The radiant sits in northern Boötes — in a now-defunct constellation, Quadrans Muralis, that gave the shower its name.
When do the Quadrantids peak in 2026?
The Quadrantids peak on the night of January 3, 2026. Under ideal dark skies with the radiant high overhead they can produce up to 120 meteors an hour — the number you'll actually see depends on your latitude, the moon, and how dark your sky is.
Activity, night by night
Modeled nightly rates across the whole 2026 window — ZHR-scale, before your sky’s discounts. Gold marks the peak night.
Quadrantids at a glance
Computed 2026-08-21 · times in UTC
Sources: International Meteor Organization · IAU Meteor Data Center · astronomy-engine v2.1.19
Where the Quadrantids come from
The Quadrantids are debris shed by 2003 EH1, a asteroid. Each year the Earth ploughs through this ancient trail of dust and the specks burn up in our atmosphere as meteors.
How to watch the Quadrantids
Get away from city lights
Light pollution is the enemy. A dark rural sky can turn a handful of meteors into dozens.
Look up after midnight
Most showers are best between midnight and dawn, when your side of Earth turns to face the debris stream head-on.
Let your eyes adapt
Give your eyes 20 minutes in the dark and put the phone away. Then just watch — meteors can streak across any part of the sky.
Photographing the Quadrantids
A camera upgrades any Quadrantids night: it integrates light for twenty seconds while your eye works in fractions of one. The recipe — wide fast lens (14–24 mm, f/1.8–2.8), 15–25 s exposures, ISO 1600–3200, manual focus locked on a bright star, intervalometer firing continuously, long-exposure noise reduction off so no meteor lands in a gap between frames.
The Quadrantids’s meteors arrive at 41 km/s — slow, long, often bright trails that reward wide framing and patience. Aim 40–60° to the side of the radiant in Boötes, where trails cross the frame at their longest, keep a slice of foreground for scale, and let the rig run: on a peak night expect a meteor in roughly one frame in fifty, and one image worth keeping.
Reading the numbers
What is ZHR?
Zenithal Hourly Rate — the standard yardstick for a shower's strength. It's how many meteors one observer would count per hour under a perfectly dark sky with the radiant directly overhead. A lab condition, not a promise: your real count is always lower.
Why will I see fewer than the ZHR?
Three honest discounts. The radiant is rarely overhead — at 30° altitude half the meteors never clear your horizon. The sky is rarely perfectly dark — city glow and moonlight wash out the faint majority. And clouds take their cut. That's why we quote a realistic range for your sky instead of the headline number.
What is the radiant?
The point the meteors appear to stream away from — pure perspective, like snowflakes fanning out from ahead when you drive through snow at night. Don't stare at it: trails look longest 40–60° away from it. What matters is its height — the higher the radiant, the more meteors above your horizon.
What does the speed (km/s) change?
The look of the show. Fast showers — the Leonids hit the atmosphere at 71 km/s — draw thin, quick streaks that often leave glowing trains. Slow ones, like the 27 km/s Taurids, roll across the sky as long, bright, sometimes orange fireballs.
Dark window vs. best window
The dark window is pure astronomy: the stretch between dusk and dawn when the sun sits far enough below the horizon. The best window is the practical answer — the hours holding at least ~70% of the night's top rate, when it's genuinely worth standing outside.
What is a parent body?
Every shower is the dust trail of one comet or asteroid. When Earth crosses that trail on its yearly lap, the grains burn up as meteors — the Perseids are crumbs of comet Swift–Tuttle, the Geminids of asteroid 3200 Phaethon.
Watch the Quadrantids from your city
Common questions about the Quadrantids
When do the Quadrantids peak in 2026?+
The Quadrantids reach their maximum on the night of January 3, 2026, though a few meteors are visible from December 28 – January 12.
Where should I look to see the Quadrantids?+
The meteors radiate from the constellation Boötes, but they streak across the whole sky — you don't need to find the radiant. Just face the darkest part of your sky and take in as much of it as you can.
Do I need a telescope to watch the Quadrantids?+
No. Meteor showers are a naked-eye event — a telescope's narrow view would only work against you. All you need is a dark sky, a reclining chair, and some patience.
What causes the Quadrantids?+
The Quadrantids happen when Earth passes through a stream of debris left behind by 2003 EH1. The dust grains hit our atmosphere at 41 km/s and burn up as bright streaks of light.
Other meteor showers
Never miss a shower again
The app does it for you — a free push alert the evening a shower peaks over your city, and only when the sky is actually clear. Out now on iPhone; the Android version is on its way.