A mixed bag of meteor showers

Out of the main meteor showers that occur each year – the Quadrantids, the Perseids and the Geminids – only the Quadrantids have a favourable lunar phase on the night of their anticipated 2019 peak. The Quandrantid peak is on the evening of 3 January; the shower has a theoretical Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) of 110 but the actual number of Quadrantids you can expect to see on the night of the peak will typically be lower due to light pollution, the altitude of the radiant (the point on the sky where shower meteors appear to come from), cloud cover and the fact that your eyes can’t see the entire sky at any given moment. For the Perseid peak on 12/13 August, there’s a gibbous Moon up most of the night and for the Geminid peak on 14 December the bright gibbous Moon is actually in Gemini – so for both showers you’ll likely have to wait for the occasional bright meteor to cut through the moonlight.