How to see the Quadrantids

3–4 January

No telescope and no binoculars — for this one they only get in the way.

From south of about 40° S the point they all come from never rises, and few if any are seen.

When to go out

The best hours are after midnight, when your side of the Earth has turned to face the way we are travelling and the dust comes at you head on.

Their peak lasts only a few hours, so in some years it falls in daylight where you are; the nights either side still show a few.

How many you will really see

The books say 110 meteors an hour at best. That is one person under a perfect black sky with the shower directly overhead, and almost nobody ever gets it. From a garden with a streetlight, a handful an hour is a good night — and one bright one is worth the wait. A bright Moon hides all but the brightest ones too, so check its phase before you plan the night.

Where to look

Anywhere. They streak across the whole sky, and if you stare at one spot you will miss the rest. What they share is a direction: trace them backwards and they all point at Boötes — though that is not what the shower is named after. It is named for Quadrans Muralis, the Mural Quadrant, a constellation that was on the charts when the shower was named and was left off the sky in 1922. The shower kept the name.

What they are

Dust from asteroid 2003 EH₁, spread along its path. The Earth crosses that path on the same date every year, and the specks hit the air at 41 kilometres a second — most of them smaller than a grain of sand.