First Meteor Shower of 2014
Start the new year by getting away from the city lights in the San Francisco Bay Area and treating yourself to a cosmic show brought to you by the Quadrantids Meteor Shower.
In 2014, watch in the wee hours – after midnight and before dawn – on late late Thursday night / early Friday morning on January 3, 2014 in North America. Because the radiant is fairly far to the north on the sky’s dome, meteor numbers will be greater in the Northern Hemisphere.
This shower has a notoriously narrow peak, so predictions might be off by a few hours. Fortunately, in 2014 the waxing crescent moon sets soon after sunset, providing a dark sky for meteor watching.
About the Quadrantids
Although the Quadrantids can produce over 100 meteors per hour, the sharp peak of this shower tends to last only a few hours, and doesn’t always come at an opportune time. In other words, you have to be in the right spot on Earth to view this meteor shower in all its splendor. The radiant point is in the part of the sky that used to be considered the constellation Quadrans Muralis the Mural Quadrant. You’ll find this radiant near the famous Big Dipper asterism (chart here), in the north-northeastern sky after midnight and highest up before dawn. – EarthSky
NASA Live Video Feed
NASA has also set up a live video feed of the shower, using a camera mounted at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. So if you’re stuck with bad weather or live in a city where lights will drown out the display, you can still view the shower online.
