Almanac · Meteor showers
Quadrantids 2026
The Quadrantids peaked on Sat 3 Jan 2026 at 21:10 UTC, when the Earth crossed the thick of the dust from 2003 EH1. The Moon was full moon, 100% lit. The next peak is the Quadrantids 2027.
- Peak Solar longitude 283.15°
- Moon at peak 100% lit Full Moon
- Radiant 15h 20m, +49° 30′ Never rises south of 40.5°S
- Best rate ZHR 110 About 48 an hour at best, from 60°N
Latitude by latitude, the night of 3–4 Jan
The best hour of the night nearest the peak at each latitude: when the radiant gives the most meteors while the sky is dark, how high it stands then, and how many an hour you would count from a suburban sky (Bortle 5) with that hour’s Moon; a dark site shows more. Times are local solar time; north of 40.5°N the radiant never sets.
| Latitude | Best hour | Radiant | Moon | Meteors an hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60°N | 06:11 | 68° up | Up, 99% lit | About 48 an hour; a Moon 99% lit drowns the faint ones |
| 45°N | 05:47 | 63° up | Up, 99% lit | About 45 an hour; a Moon 99% lit drowns the faint ones |
| 30°N | 05:27 | 52° up | Up, 99% lit | About 39 an hour; a Moon 99% lit drowns the faint ones |
| 15°N | 05:08 | 37° up | Up, 99% lit | About 31 an hour; a Moon 99% lit drowns the faint ones |
| 0° | 04:42 | 22° up | Up, 99% lit | About 19 an hour; a Moon 99% lit drowns the faint ones |
| 15°S | 04:14 | 5° up | Up, 99% lit | About 4.7 an hour; a Moon 99% lit drowns the faint ones |
| 30°S | — | — | Up, 99% lit | The radiant is below the horizon while it is dark |
| 45°S | — | — | Up, 99% lit | The radiant never rises |
Meteor shower The shower
- Zenithal hourly rate at the peak: 110. That is the count for one observer under a perfect sky with the radiant overhead; the table above is what the sky actually gives.
- Parent body: 2003 EH1.
- Meteors meet the air at 41 km/s.
- Population index 2.1: each magnitude fainter holds that many times more meteors, which is what moonlight and city light take away.
How we worked it out: the peak is the instant the Sun reaches solar longitude 283.15° (J2000), the shower’s maximum in the International Meteor Organization’s Meteor Shower Calendar, found from Meeus’s solar theory; maxima are broad and wander by hours from year to year. The Moon is Meeus’s lunar theory, the one the map draws, checked against the U.S. Naval Observatory. Each latitude is worked at Greenwich’s longitude for the night nearest the peak, sampled every 10 minutes, and the rate is the IMO’s ZHR turned back into what one observer counts: ZHR × sin(radiant altitude) × r(limiting magnitude − 6.5), with the limiting magnitude the map’s own for that sky and Moon.
- International Meteor Organization, Meteor Shower Calendar (J. Rendtel): each maximum’s solar longitude, ZHR, population index and radiant
- J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms, ch. 25 (the Sun) and ch. 47–48 (the Moon), as the map draws them
- U.S. Naval Observatory, Astronomical Applications: the Moon’s illuminated fraction, which the tests hold these to