A Fine Night for a Meteor Shower
Expect the radiant of the Quadrantid meteor shower to start to rise high in the early morning hours.
Tonight astronomers will be gazing toward the night skies to get a glimpse of a quadrantid meteor shower. It's expected to be one of the best but least observed annual meteor showers notes Alan MacRobert in an online Sky & Skope post. The Quadrantids should be most active in the early morning hours of Wednesday the 4th. The Moon sets around 3 a.m. local time then, leaving the sky dark until the first light of dawn around 6 a.m. "Astronomy guidebooks say the Quads are one of the richest annual meteor showers, with peak rates of 60 to 200 visible per hour under ideal conditions. But many lifelong skywatchers have never seen a single one," notes MacRobert. MacRobert notes in his post that the Quadrantids are expected to peak around 2 or 3 a…
