Meteor shower
Eta Aquariids
Excellent from New Zealand
Debris from Halley's Comet, and the southern hemisphere's showpiece shower. Best in the two or three hours before dawn.
Computed from standard astronomical algorithms · Shower parameters: IMO working list of visual meteor showers · Reviewed Oct 2026 · Method
From New Zealand
The best shower of the year from New Zealand, and the clearest case of southern advantage: the radiant rises well before dawn and climbs high, where from northern latitudes it stays near the horizon. These are grains shed by Halley's Comet, hitting the atmosphere at 66 km/s — fast, and often leaving persistent trains.
How much the Moon will spoil it
A bright Moon washes out everything but the brightest meteors, and it is the difference between a good night and a wasted one more often than cloud is. Computed for the peak:
| Year | Moon at peak | Phase | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 81% lit | Waning gibbous | Badly moonlit |
| 2027 | 0% lit | New moon | Dark — good |
How to watch
Get away from town lights, give your eyes 20 minutes to adapt, and do not look at your phone. Lie back and take in as much sky as you can rather than staring at the radiant — meteors near the radiant are foreshortened and look shorter than they are.
The quoted 50 per hour is a zenithal hourly rate: what a single observer would count under a perfect dark sky with the radiant directly overhead. Nobody ever sees that. A realistic dark-sky count from New Zealand is a fraction of it, and from a suburb, a fraction of that. Dark sky notes apply here too.