Meteor Shower - Quadrantids - Dec. 26 to Jan. 16 2026 - Personal Activity

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This is a personal challenge activity. If you have questions, need help, or want to organize with other members feel free to post comments below.

The American Meteor Society has this to say...

The Quadrantids have the potential to be the strongest shower of the year but usually fall short due to the short length of maximum activity (6 hours) and the poor weather experienced during early January. The average hourly rates one can expect under dark skies is 25. These meteors usually lack persistent trains but often produce bright fireballs. Due to the high northerly declination (celestial latitude) these meteors are not well seen from the southern hemisphere. Predictions for 2026 show a peak near 00:36 UT on January 4th. This timing favors Asia..Activity will be severely compromised in 2026 as a full moon occurs on January 3rd.

Shower details - Radiant: 15:20 +49.7° - ZHR: 120 - Velocity: 25 miles/sec (medium - 40.4km/sec) - Parent Object: 2003 EH (Asteroid)

Next Peak - The Quadrantids will next peak on the Jan 3-4, 2026 night. On this night, the moon will be 100% full.

AMS Meteor Shower Calendar -- https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/

Nature Nerds of Austin has this to say...

"Where is a good place to see the meteor shower?"

Good question, the darker the better. For the Austin area going either E or W will provide darker skies. I'd suggest looking at a light pollution map to help focus on areas as well.

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ https://darksitefinder.com/

https://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_map.html

https://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/overlay/dark.html

https://www.darkskymap.com/

Because meteor showers are pieces of rock and dust on an orbit that intersects Earth's orbit at some point in time and space the best time to pick as the middle of your observing window is 2am local. This is because of the way the sun, the earth, and the meteor shower interact. From sundown to 2am the light gets progressively darker and after 2am it gets progressively lighter until you hit sunrise.

You'll want a good low sitting chair that has a lot of lean back. You basically want to lay back and just stare at the sky unfocused until you see an event. They can last from very short blips to long streaks lasting several seconds. If you're lucky you'll see an air burst where a large bolide comes apart in a shower, they are extremely rare.

The best binoculars to use for stargazing are 25x70 but smaller ones will work. Larger ones have too much magnification and there is a lot of jitter just from your natural body motion so the image is not stable. Binoculars are not a lot of use for meteor showers.

The two best places to get basic information are IMO and AMS.

IMO Shower Calendar -- https://www.imo.net/resources/calendar/

AMS Shower Calendar -- https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/

Austin Astronomical Society (AAS) - They have many activities through the year. Consider becoming a member. -- https://austinastro.org/

You should also use Stellarium to help map out the date/time/and sky position of the expected source of the shower for a given date. BE ADVISED meteor showers are EXTREMELY UNPREDICTABLE. So don't expect to go out there and see something in the first 15 minutes. You could be out there all night and not see anything. Other nights you may get lucky and see a shower that has a high rate.

Stellarium has the ability to turn the screen red so you can keep it live if you have a laptop at your observing site.

Stellarium -- https://stellarium.org/