The shower can produce up to 80 meteors an hour, but its peak lasts only a few hours.
The Quadrantid meteor shower, the first major shower of 2027, peaks on the night of January 3-4. Maximum activity is predicted around 8:00 UTC on January 4.
Under ideal dark skies, the shower can produce about 80 meteors an hour. Its peak is unusually narrow, lasting only a few hours, so timing matters more than with most showers.
A waning crescent moon will rise only in the early morning hours, leaving the sky dark for much of the night. The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Bootes, near the handle of the Big Dipper, best seen in the hours before dawn.
The Quadrantids are believed to come from asteroid 2003 EH1, possibly the remains of an extinct comet. No telescope is needed: find a dark spot, let your eyes adjust for 20 to 30 minutes and look to the north-east.
