Do I need a telescope to see a meteor shower?

No. Telescopes and binoculars actually make it harder — they narrow your field of view. Meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, so use your naked eye and take in as much of the sky as possible.

What's the best time of night for meteors?

Almost always the hours between local midnight and dawn. That's when your side of Earth faces into its orbital motion, sweeping up more debris — you can easily see 2–3× as many meteors then as in the early evening.

Does the Moon really matter?

A lot. A bright Moon washes out fainter meteors and can cut observed rates by half or more. Showers that peak near new Moon (or with the Moon set before midnight) hugely outperform showers that peak near full Moon.

What is ZHR and will I really see that many?

Zenithal Hourly Rate is a theoretical maximum: a single observer under perfectly dark skies with the radiant directly overhead. In practice, subtract for light pollution, radiant altitude, and Moon interference — a ZHR-100 shower often yields 20–40 meteors per hour to a real observer.

What's the difference between a meteor, meteoroid and meteorite?

A meteoroid is the fragment in space, a meteor is the streak of light as it burns up in the atmosphere, and a meteorite is what survives to reach the ground.

Meteor showers

The Orionids are active — a background hum of orionids building toward peak.

Is there a meteor shower tonight?

Q: Where should I look?

Not directly at the radiant. Meteors appear to fly outward from the radiant but are longest and brightest 30–60° away from it. Lie back, aim your gaze near the zenith, and let peripheral vision do the work.

The Orionids are inside their active window tonight, with a peak ZHR of 20 and the Moon 53% lit worldwide. How many you actually see depends on your latitude, your cloud cover and how high the radiant climbs from where you stand — set a location below for the effective rate.

Featured: Orionids
Effective rate: ~5/hr
ZHR: 20
Moon: 53%

Location not set

Set a location for tonight's effective meteor rate

Which showers are running is the same everywhere tonight — how many meteors you will actually see is not. Radiant altitude, the dark window and cloud cover decide that, and all three depend on where you stand.

Effective meteors per hour, after Moon and cloud
How high the radiant climbs and when
The dark window in your local time
Whether tonight or a later night is the better bet

Your choice stays in this browser. Nothing is sent to a SnapCosmos server.

Is there a meteor shower tonight?

Yes — the Orionids are still active tonight, 2 days before their Oct 21 peak, so activity is still building. Peak ZHR is 20; the Moon is 53% lit tonight worldwide. Set a location above to turn that into a real hourly rate for your sky.

What time is the meteor shower tonight?

Meteor showers don't start at a clock time — they intensify as the shower's radiant climbs. From most northern-hemisphere locations that means the best hours run from local midnight to about an hour before dawn, when Earth is rotating into its orbital motion and sweeping up more debris. For the Orionids (radiant in Orion), the exact window depends on when the radiant is high and the sky is dark where you are — set a location above and SnapCosmos calculates it to the minute.

Where should I look?

Not at the radiant itself. Meteors appear to fly outward from the radiant but are longest and brightest 30–60° away from it. Lie flat, aim your gaze near the zenith (straight up), and let peripheral vision do the work. If a bright Moon is up, face away from it so it doesn't wash out your dark adaptation. The Orionids radiant is in Orion; keep it at the edge of your view, not the centre.

Best place near me to see the meteor shower

Once the sky is clear, light pollution is one of the biggest factors in how many meteors you see. Moving from a heavily light-polluted city sky to a darker rural site can make a large number of otherwise invisible faint meteors show up. How far you have to travel varies enormously from place to place, so find the nearest genuinely darker area rather than assuming a fixed drive time. Use lightpollutionmap.info to find the nearest dark patch, prioritise a wide horizon and no direct floodlights, and avoid any spot where you can see the glow of a nearby town on the horizon.

Are we in a meteor shower right now?

Yes. The Orionids are inside their active window tonight. Active windows can stretch weeks around the peak, so activity is often background-level except within a few days of peak — see the calendar below for exact windows and ZHR.

Meteor shower or asteroid shower?

There's no such thing as an "asteroid shower." What you're looking for is a meteor shower — Earth crossing a stream of dust-sized debris left behind by a comet (or, for the Geminids, the near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon). The particles are the size of a grain of rice, hit the atmosphere at 30–70 km/s, and burn up 80–100 km overhead. Actual asteroids don't produce showers; they're tracked one at a time by observatories like NASA CNEOS.

Active tonight

What's raining down right now

Every shower currently within its active window. ZHR is the theoretical maximum; real-world rates are usually a fraction of that.

Active now

Orionids

ZHR peak

Fast, bright meteors from Halley's Comet debris.

Parent: Comet 1P/Halley
Radiant: Orion (RA 06h 20m · Dec +16°)
Best from: Both
Speed: 66 km/s (very fast)

Peaks in 2 days

Practical

How to watch a meteor shower

Meteor showers happen when Earth crosses debris left behind by a comet (or, in the case of the Geminids, an asteroid). The dust grains — most no bigger than a grain of rice — hit the atmosphere at 30–70 km/s and burn up 80–100 km overhead. What you see is the ionised air trail, not the grain itself.

The single biggest lever on how many meteors you see is sky darkness. A genuinely dark rural site can reveal substantially more faint meteors than a suburban backyard, because most shower meteors are fainter than the limiting magnitude of a light-polluted sky. The second lever is Moon phase: a full Moon can cut observed rates by more than half. The third is radiant altitude — showers deliver their advertised rate only when the radiant is high in your sky, which is why post-midnight is almost always better.

Pick the darkest sky you can reach — a darker site can make substantially more faint meteors visible.
Arrive at least 20 minutes before your best observing window so your eyes fully adapt to the dark.
Lie flat on a reclining chair or ground mat so you can watch the whole sky without neck strain.
Aim your gaze about 45° away from the radiant, roughly toward the zenith.
Dress warmer than you think — you'll be still for a long time.
Give it at least an hour before deciding whether it's worth it.

Sporadic meteors — background debris not associated with any shower — add roughly 5–10 meteors per hour on any given night, more toward dawn. Even on a "no shower" night, an hour under a dark sky is rarely empty. Cross-check the Moon page for tonight's illumination, and the Milky Way page for a sense of how dark your sky can get.

Annual calendar

The seven major showers of the year

In date order, with peak, ZHR, parent body and radiant. Bookmark this table — it decides your calendar for the year.

Shower	Peak	ZHR	Parent	Radiant	Best from
Quadrantids	01-03	110	Asteroid 2003 EH1	Boötes (RA 15h 20m · Dec +49°)	Northern
Lyrids	04-22	18	Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher	Lyra (RA 18h 08m · Dec +32°)	Northern
Eta Aquariids	05-06	50	Comet 1P/Halley	Aquarius (RA 22h 24m · Dec −1°)	Southern tropics best
Perseids	08-12	100	Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle	Perseus (RA 03h 12m · Dec +58°)	Northern
Orionids	10-21	20	Comet 1P/Halley	Orion (RA 06h 20m · Dec +16°)	Both
Leonids	11-17	15	Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle	Leo (RA 10h 12m · Dec +22°)	Both
Geminids	12-14	120	Asteroid 3200 Phaethon	Gemini (RA 07h 28m · Dec +33°)	Both

Peak-night Moon

Which showers land under a dark Moon this year

A shower's rated ZHR assumes a moonless sky. This table shows the Moon phase and illumination at each upcoming peak, plus the practical impact on how many meteors you'll actually see.

Shower	Peak	Moon phase	Illumination	Impact
Quadrantids	Jan 3 2027	Waning Crescent	20%	low
Lyrids	Apr 22 2027	Full Moon	99%	high
Eta Aquariids	May 6 2027	New Moon	0%	low
Perseids	Aug 12 2027	Waxing Gibbous	77%	high
Orionids	Oct 21 2026	Waxing Gibbous	72%	high
Leonids	Nov 17 2026	First Quarter	45%	moderate
Geminids	Dec 14 2026	Waxing Crescent	21%	low

Frequently asked questions

Keep exploring tonight's sky

Tonight's sky guide

Sunset, twilight, moonrise and darkness times for your location.

Moon tonight

Phase, illumination and rise/set times for your location.

Planets tonight

Which planets are visible after sunset and before dawn.

Milky Way tonight

When the Milky Way core is above your horizon.

ISS passes tonight

Live pass times with direction and altitude for your location.