Photographer Jeffrey Berkes took a picture of the Quadrantid meteor shower in the Florida Keys. Jeffrey Berkes is the photographer.
There are only two annual showers that can produce over 100 per hour: the December Geminids and the January Quadrantids.
The Quadrantid meteor shower occurs in early January. The "Quads" appear to fan out from a spot in the night sky midway between the Big Dipper's handle and the four stars marking the head of the dragon.
The main challenge in spotting the Quadrantids is catching them when they are active. The decline of the Quadrantids can take as little as 4 hours after they reach peak activity. Skywatchers from different hemispheres report seeing the Quadrantids in vastly different numbers.
The shower is odd in several ways.
A sky map of the peak. The image is from Starry Night.
Good and bad in the year of 2022.
There is good and bad news for the show.
There will be no bright moonlight when the new moon arrives.
The bad news for some.
The "Quads" are due to peak this year at around 04:00 p.m., according to Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown in the "Observer's Handbook" of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. On Mon., it will be at 3100GMT. If you live in East Asia, you can expect to see up to 120 meteors per hour on January 3.
When this shower reaches its peak, skywatchers in North America will be facing the wrong way. The shower peaks in the afternoon. Skywatchers won't have a chance of seeing the shower's peak because of that.
Stargazers are amazed by the Quadrantid meteorite shower.
The best views on Monday morning.
The timing of the shower's peak isn't great for many skywatchers, but there are other times in the year when you might see some shooting stars.
The best time to see the spectacle is during the predawn hours of Monday morning. The emanation point for these meteors will be climbing up into the northeast before dawn.
The shower will be peaking later that day, but you can still see as many as 15 to 30 meteors per hour.
The Quads are a band.
The Quadrantids are not a comet, but a near-Earth asteroid. The shower is made up of bits of the asteroid 2004 EH1 burning up in Earth's atmosphere.
It is thought that this asteroid was an active comet that shed material into space. The larger particles are on the outer side of the stream and the brighter the meteors that appear after the shower's peak tend to be. The meteors are bright and usually blue in color and travel at a medium speed. Only a few, maybe just 5 to 10 percent, also leave fine, long-spreading and persistent silver trails in their wake.
The name of the meteors has a history. The "wall quadrant" was once home to a dim, shapeless star pattern. The pattern was created by French astronomer Jérme Lalande from a scattering of dim stars between the constellations of Botes and Draco. The instrument was supposed to be used to measure the altitudes of the stars, but never caught on, and the star pattern became extinct.
January is the coldest month of the year. If you are going to hunt for Quads, make sure to bundle up warmly.
Good luck and clear skies!
If you have an amazing skywatching photo you'd like to share, you can send it to spacephotos@space.com.
Night Sky Guides.
Joe is an instructor and lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for a number of publications. Follow us on social media.
