Skyfold Meteor Shower Calendar

What it is for

Meteor shower dates are easy to find, but "the Perseids peak on 12 August" says little about what you will see from your own garden. The radiant may still be low when it gets dark, the Moon may wash out all faint meteors, and a suburban sky hides most of them anyway.

This tool lists the showers of a year for one place and works out, for the night of each maximum, how many meteors per hour you can expect hour by hour. It combines the shower data of the International Meteor Organization with the Sun, Moon and radiant positions of Skyfold's ephemeris, and gives you an .ics calendar of the best windows. It does not predict outbursts, and it assumes a clear sky.

Worked example

Vienna (48.2082, 16.3738, 190 m, Europe/Vienna), year 2026, Your sky set to Suburban sky, the major showers, hour-by-hour table for the Geminids.

The summary says the best shower of 2026 there is the Geminids: about 63 meteors per hour around 01:40 on the night of 14 December, with the Moon 28 % lit. The table shows why the year is lopsided:

• Perseids: maximum 13 August 04:05, Moon 0 % lit, 0 % lost to moonlight, best window 01:00–04:20, about 46 per hour — excellent.
• Quadrantids: Moon 99 % lit, 65 % of the meteors lost, about 18 per hour — still good because the ZHR is high.
• Ursids: Moon 98 % lit, 74 % lost, about 2 per hour — poor.

The Geminid night table starts at 17:00 with the radiant only 1.8° up and the Moon 26° high, so the first hours are moonlit with 9–36 meteors per hour. After 22:00 the Moon has set, the sky turns dark and the rate climbs to 63 per hour at 02:00 with the radiant 74.6° high.

The limiting magnitude stays at 5.6 all night: the suburban sky, not the thin crescent, sets the limit.

How to read the result

• Maximum is the moment the Earth crosses the shower's peak position, in your local time. Night of is the evening date of the night you should go out (a maximum at 04:05 belongs to the night that began the evening before).
• Moon lit and Lost to moonlight are separate: a bright Moon below the horizon during the best hours costs nothing.
• Best time covers the hours with at least 70 % of the best rate; Meteors per hour is the rate at the best moment, already reduced for radiant height, sky and Moon.
• The Rating goes from excellent (30 or more per hour) to not visible (the radiant never rises in a dark sky).
• The hour-by-hour table counts meteors only while the Sun is at least 12° below the horizon.

Tips and common mistakes

• Pick the sky class honestly. Going from Suburban sky to Dark site roughly doubles the counts of a shower with r = 2.2.
• A ZHR is a theoretical maximum for a perfect sky with the radiant overhead; the hourly rate you see is always lower.
• Variable showers (Leonids, Draconids, Ursids) are marked "variable": the table shows their usual level, not a possible outburst.
• Southern places see the η-Aquariids well and never see the Quadrantids; the tool handles both hemispheres.
• Import the .ics file into your calendar to get a reminder an hour before each best window.

FAQ

Why does the tool show fewer meteors than news articles?

Articles quote the ZHR. The tool converts it to what one observer sees from your place, with your sky and the Moon at that hour.

Where should I look?

About 45° away from the radiant and 50–60° up. Meteors appear all over the sky; their trails point back to the radiant.

Can I use it for another year?

Yes, any year from 2000 to 2100. Shower data come from the current IMO list, so long-term changes of a stream are not included.

Does it include clouds?

No. Check the weather separately; in Skyfold the Aurora tab adds the MET Norway cloud forecast for the next nights.