★ Quadrantid Meteor Shower

The Quadrantids open the meteor year, and on a good night they rival the best showers of summer and December. The catch is timing: the peak lasts only a few hours, and it comes in early January, when northern nights are long and cold. Catch it before dawn under a clear sky and you may see a meteor every couple of minutes.

Where the meteors come from

Most showers come from comets, but the Quadrantids are traced to 2003 EH1, a body about 3 km across that looks more like an asteroid. It was found by the LONEOS survey at Lowell Observatory, and the meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens identified it as the shower's source. It orbits the Sun every 5.52 years and may be a "dead" comet that has lost most of its ice. Its stream of grains is thin, and Earth crosses it almost at right angles, which is why the peak is so short. The grains hit the atmosphere at about 41 km/s.

When to watch

The shower is active from December 28 to January 12, but away from the peak you will see only a few an hour. The peak comes around January 3–4, and the strongest activity is usually quoted as lasting about four hours. The table above gives the expected time and the Moon. Even the prediction is uncertain by about two and a half hours, so start early.

From mid-northern latitudes the radiant skims the northern horizon in the evening, climbs through the night, and is high in the northeast by dawn, so the last two or three hours before twilight are best.

How to find the radiant

The radiant lies in the far north of Boötes, near the end of the Big Dipper's handle, in an area that once belonged to the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis, the "mural quadrant".

Before dawn in January the Big Dipper stands high in the northeast. Follow its handle to the last star, Alkaid. The radiant is about a fist and a half at arm's length below Alkaid, and about a fist to the left of Nekkar, the star at the top of the kite-shaped pattern of Boötes. Meteors appear all over the sky, but their paths trace back to this area. From the Southern Hemisphere the radiant stays low or never rises.

What to expect

IMO gives a peak ZHR of about 80, ranging from about 60 to 200 in different years. If the peak falls in your pre-dawn hours, with the radiant 50 to 60 degrees up, expect 25 to 50 meteors an hour from a dark rural site and 10 to 20 from the suburbs. Half a day from the peak, expect only a few an hour.

At 41 km/s Quadrantids are medium-speed meteors. The low population index at maximum (r = 2.1) means a good share of bright ones, and the shower is known for its fireballs.

Viewing tips

• Dress for the coldest part of a winter night: thermal layers, a hat, insulated boots, and a sleeping bag to lie in.
• With a peak this short, check the predicted hour in the table above before you pick a morning.
• Face northeast, below the Big Dipper's handle, and look about halfway up.
• January skies are often cloudy. Watch the forecast and go out on whichever morning near the peak is clear.

History and notable displays

The early-January meteors were first noticed in 1825. The shower took its name from Quadrans Muralis, which the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande created in 1795 and named after an instrument used to measure star positions. The IAU left it off its list of modern constellations in 1922, but the shower kept the name.

Peak rates vary from year to year. IMO found the highest visual ZHRs in 2022, 2023 and 2025 in the lower part of the usual range, while 2024 and 2026 came close to the long-term average. Radio data from 2020 to 2022 showed a wider maximum than the usual four hours, and video data put the peak slightly early.