Orionids
Active 2 October – 7 November
- ZHR 20
- Radiant dec +15.7°
- Speed 66.1 km/s
- Best from Both hemispheres
October Draconids
A baseline rate of five an hour attached to the most spectacular outburst history of any shower on this list.
Stream data
- Zenithal hourly rate
- 5
- Population index r
- 2.6 (balanced)
- Speed
- 20.8 km/s (slow)
- Radiant (J2000)
- 17h 31m, +55.9°
- Radiant drift
- +0.2739, +0.0406 °/° solar longitude
- Solar longitude of maximum
- 195.4°
- Activity window
- 6 October – 10 October (5 days)
- Parent body
- Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner
Source solution: IAU MDC established V.2 (AdNo=007, sub.date 2023-10-01, |LoS-peak|=0.00deg — most recent complete solution within 10deg of peak) + Stellarium MeteorShowers.json v2; parent_body from Stellarium parentObj
On the tabulated numbers the October Draconids barely justify going outside: a ZHR of 5, corrected for a realistic radiant altitude and any sky brightness at all, rounds towards nothing. The shower is here because its baseline is not the whole story. Draconid storms in 1933 and 1946 produced rates thousands of times the baseline, and lesser outbursts have recurred since. This engine models the baseline only and says so plainly on the methodology page.
What the shower does have going for it structurally is the radiant at declination +55.9°, high in the northern sky in early October, and the fact that it is best in the evening rather than the small hours — the radiant is highest shortly after darkness falls rather than before dawn. For anyone with an early start the next day, that is not a trivial advantage.
At 20.8 km/s these are by a wide margin the slowest meteors on this site; the Leonids arrive more than three times faster. Slow meteors track visibly across the sky rather than flashing, which makes the few you see memorable. The parent is Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, which is why the shower is often called the Giacobinids in older sources.
Where on Earth it works
The radiant passes overhead at 55.9°N and never rises at all south of 34.1°S. A radiant's highest possible altitude is 90° minus the difference between your latitude and its declination, and the rate you see scales with the sine of that altitude — so this table is the ceiling, before any Moon, cloud or light pollution.
| Latitude | Highest the radiant gets | Share of the zenithal rate |
|---|---|---|
| 60°N — Oslo, Anchorage | 86° | 100% |
| 51.5°N — London, Calgary | 86° | 100% |
| 40°N — Madrid, New York, Beijing | 74° | 96% |
| 22.3°N — Hong Kong, Mexico City | 56° | 83% |
| 0° — the equator | 34° | 56% |
| 23.5°S — São Paulo, Brisbane | 11° | 18% |
| 33.9°S — Sydney, Cape Town | 0° | 0% |
| 41°S — Wellington | Never rises | 0% |
Below the horizon all night south of 34.1°S: for observers there the modelled rate is zero rather than small, and the verdict on this site reports "not visible from your latitude" instead of a number.
The next five peaks
Peak instants are solved from the tabulated solar longitude of maximum (195.4°, referenced to the J2000 equinox). Moon illumination is the fraction of the lunar disc lit at that instant — the one factor you can plan around years ahead.
| Year | Peak (UTC) | Weekday | Moon lit | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Friday | 3% | new Moon | |
| 2027 | Saturday | 67% | first quarter | |
| 2028 | Sunday | 79% | waning gibbous | |
| 2029 | Monday | 2% | new Moon | |
| 2030 | Wednesday | 94% | waxing gibbous |
In 2026 that means a dark sky — the Moon is close to new and takes almost nothing away. Full year pages: 2026 · 2027.
October Draconids: the questions that change the decision
Is it worth going outside for a shower with a ZHR of 5?
On the tabulated numbers, rarely: a ZHR of 5 corrected for a realistic radiant altitude and sky brightness lands close to zero for most observers. The October Draconids are on this site for a different reason — the radiant is at declination +55.9°, high enough from northern latitudes that the shower is watchable in the evening rather than the small hours, and the ZHR quoted is a baseline that historically has been wrong by three orders of magnitude in outburst years. The engine here models the baseline only, and the methodology page says so plainly.
Why is the quoted rate so low when the Draconids are famous for storms?
The 5 figure is the regular-year baseline seeded from the Stellarium dataset. Storm years happen when Earth crosses a dense dust trail released by Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner in a specific perihelion passage, which requires trail-integration modelling this site does not do. Treat any Draconid number here as the floor. If a specialist forecast predicts an outburst for a given year, that forecast supersedes this one.
Are slow meteors easier to see, and does that change the decision?
At 20.8 km/s the Draconids are the slowest of the twelve showers here by a wide margin — the Leonids arrive at 70.3 km/s, more than three times faster. Slow meteors are easier to notice and easier to photograph, but they are also fainter for the same particle mass. It does not change the arithmetic: with a baseline ZHR of 5, the decision is driven by whether an outburst is forecast, not by the appearance of individual meteors.
Can the Draconids be seen from the southern hemisphere?
Barely. South of 34.1°S the radiant never rises at all, and from 20°S the radiant reaches only 14°. Combined with a baseline ZHR of 5, the modelled southern rate rounds to zero.
Which Draconid years have a dark sky at the peak?
Between 2026 and 2030 the dark-Moon peaks are 2026 and 2029; 2028 and 2030 are moonlit. A dark Moon matters more than usual here, because with a baseline of 5 per hour there is no margin at all.
Which October Draconids years between 2026 and 2030 are actually worth planning around?
Judged only on how much of the Moon is lit at the peak instant: 2026 — 9 October 2026 (Moon 3% lit); 2027 — 9 October 2027 (Moon 67% lit); 2028 — 8 October 2028 (Moon 79% lit); 2029 — 8 October 2029 (Moon 2% lit); 2030 — 9 October 2030 (Moon 94% lit). The dark-Moon years are 2026 and 2029; the washed-out ones are 2028 and 2030. Moon illumination is the only one of the four factors that is knowable years ahead — cloud cover is not, and neither is whether you will be somewhere dark.
Why do I always see fewer October Draconids than the 5 per hour that gets quoted?
Because 5 is the zenithal hourly rate: what one observer would count under a magnitude 6.5 sky with the radiant straight overhead. Two corrections pull it down before you ever look up. Rate scales with the sine of the radiant altitude, so a radiant 30° up delivers half of what it delivers at the zenith. And the population index for this shower is r = 2.6, which means each magnitude of sky brightness you lose costs you a factor of 2.6 in the count. A suburban sky two magnitudes shallower than the reference therefore divides the rate by about 6.8. Real counts are typically 30–50% under the modelled figure even after those corrections.
Get told before the next peak
One email seven days before a peak so you can keep the night free, and one on the evening itself with the verdict for your location. If your sky is going to be hopeless that night, the second email tells you the next good night instead of pretending otherwise.