When to Watch the Peak of Quadrantid Meteor Shower

“During its peak, 60 to as many as 200 Quadrantid meteors can be seen per hour under ideal conditions”, NASA reports.

The first meteor shower of 2016 will peak January 3-4 with the Southeast in a prime viewing spot. Mixed, according to the National Weather Service.

Editor’s note:If you capture an awesome photo of the Quadrantid meteor shower and would like to share it with us and our news partners in a possible story or image galleries, send images and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com. If it’s a clear night, upwards of 100 shooting stars per hour should be visible, Fazekas says. Another aspect that makes this shower a crowd-pleaser is that the Lyrids tend to be bright and often leave trails, which may be enough to overcome the drenching moonlight during the peak, April 22. The predicted hour for the peak – 3 a.m. EST – comes from the Canadian Observer’s Handbook.

For mid-northern observers, the meteor shower’s radiant stays near the northern horizon until midnight but rises high in the northeast by dawn. These fireballs will be larger and brighter than the average meteor shower.

But the shower remains relatively unknown compared to the Geminids, Leonids and Perseids.

If your location or weather prevent you from being able to get a good view of the shower, you can always check it out online via the Slooh Observatory’s livefeed broadcast from the Canary Islands. The peak of the shower will last about two hours, NASA said.

Tonight’s Quadrantid meteor shower promises a spectacle for those of us lucky enough to be in the right latitude at the right time. This year is likely to witness about 80 meteors every hour at a cozy speed of about 25 miles per second.

The Quadrantids are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. The meteor shower is expected to start on Sunday night, January 3rd and extends into the early morning hours of Monday morning, January 4th. 2, but modest as well with only about seven meteors an hour, with most of the activity taking place around midnight.

“Some of the greatest meteor storms in history have been associated with his event, which can produce rates of thousands of meteors per minute during a span of 15 minutes, as occurred on November 17, 1966”. Unfortunately, the bright light of a waning gibbous moon will offer some competition.

Be patient – the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse. Its peak is expected to range from about 3 a.m.to the first light of the day.

This minor meteor shower often goes unnoticed.