Crestone
Weather Center
Crestone, Colorado
(photo courtesy of NASA)
Best Meteor
Shower show of 2026 will be
the
Perseid Shower
(posted by Keno on
8/8/26)
The
next meteor shower to view
will be the Perseid meteor shower,
which peaks on August 12–13, with active dates running from
now until August 24. Conditions this year are ideal because the peak coincides with a new moon, offering dark, moonless skies and
you might see up to 50 to 100 meteors per hour.
Yes, we will have no moonlight getting in the way of this fire show, as this year's shower will occur during the new moon phase, so that means dark skies will make the shooting stars easy to see for their visit. Viewing Times and Tips: Best hours: Watch from midnight to dawn on August 12 and 13. Location: Look toward the east sky, though meteors can/will appear anywhere overhead. Source: The shower comes from debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle. This shower rises to a peak gradually, then falls off rapidly. Plus, Perseid meteors tend to strengthen in number as late night deepens into the wee hours before dawn. So, the shower is often best seen just before dawn. These meteors are colorful and many of them are bright. They frequently leave persistent trains. All of these factors make the Perseid shower perhaps the most beloved meteor shower for the Northern Hemisphere.
The parent comet responsible for the Perseid meteor shower is a rather large comet called 109P/Swift-Tuttle. The comet orbits the sun approximately every 133 years. Lewis Swift of Marathon, New York, visually discovered it on July 16, 1862, using an 11-centimeter (4.3-inch) refractor lens telescope.
2026 Major Meteor Showers (Class I)
- Meteor Showers in 2026 -
The dates in the table below are for the predawn hours in North America closest to the predicted peak of Earth’s passage through the meteoroid stream. Most showers are also active to some degree for a number of nights, sometimes on many nights, before and after the predicted peak date.
Important: The listed peak rate is what’s called the “zenithal hourly rate,” which is what a very lucky viewer would see under ideal conditions: a very dark sky free of moonlight or light pollution (stars of magnitude 6½ detectable naked-eye), with full dark adaptation and the radiant high overhead. Rarely are we so blessed, so most likely you’ll see lower rates than those listed.
| Shower | Radiant and its direction | Morning of maximum | Peak rate (per hour) |
Parent
comet or asteroid |
| Quadrantids | Boötes (NE) | Jan. 3 | 15-120+ | 2003 EH1 |
| Lyrids | Lyra (E) | April 22 | 10-20+ | Thatcher |
| Eta Aquariids | Aquarius (E) | May 4 | 50 | 1P/Halley |
| Delta Aquariids | Aquarius (S) | July 12 to Aug. 23 | 20 | 96P/Machholz? |
| Alpha Capricornids | Alpha Capricorni (E) | July 31 | 5-10 | 169P/NEAT |
| Perseids | Perseus (NE) | Aug. 12-13 | 100 | 109P/Swift-Tuttle |
| Orionids | Orion (SE) | Oct. 21 | 20 | 1P/Halley |
| Taurids | Taurus (overhead) | Nov 12 | 5-10 | 2P/Encke |
| Leonids | Leo (E) | Nov 17 | 15 | 55P/Tempel-Tuttle |
| Geminids | Gemini (E) | Dec. 14 | 140 | 3200 Phaethon |
| Ursids | Ursa Minor (N) | Peak Dec 22 | 10 | 8P/Tuttle |
Number per hour max is for a moonless rural sky
|
There are meteor showers taking place every day/night of the year, but
many are hard to see. The meteor showers listed above are the easiest to
observe and provide the most activity. All of these showers are best seen after
midnight. Some are not even visible until after midnight. Particular attention
should be noted to the moonlight conditions. Showers that peak with
the moon at half or more full will be affected by the moonlight and will be
difficult to observe. While the dates noted above for when each shower is best seen
- remains
close to the same dates year after year, the moonlight conditions change considerably from
one year to the next. |