Time & date
Shooting Star
A quiet night sky where shooting stars cross at random — type a wish and watch it fly away — with a calendar of the meteor showers coming up.
F full screen · Esc to exit · move the mouse or tap to show controls. Reduce motion follows your system setting until you change it: stars stop twinkling and shooting stars fade in place instead of streaking.
Meteor showers in the next 12 months
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Peak dates, times, ZHR, activity periods, speeds and radiants: International Meteor Organization, IMO 2026 Meteor Shower Calendar (ed. Jürgen Rendtel). Times given by the IMO in UT are shown in your time zone; dates without a time are the IMO’s UT dates. Only dates published in an IMO calendar are shown as confirmed. ZHR is the rate one observer would see under a perfectly dark sky with the radiant overhead; real counts are usually lower. Moon percentages are calculated on this page.
How to see shooting stars
- Get away from street and city lights; a truly dark sky shows far more meteors than a suburban one.
- Give your eyes 20–30 minutes to adapt to the dark, and avoid looking at a bright phone screen (use a red light or the lowest brightness).
- Lie back and take in as much sky as you can. Meteors appear anywhere, not only near the radiant; binoculars and telescopes show too little sky to help.
- Most showers are richest after midnight, when your side of Earth faces forward along its orbit and the radiant climbs higher. The Geminids are the exception that starts well in the evening.
- Moonlight hides faint meteors. Nights with little or no Moon near the peak are the best ones.
- Dress warmly, bring a reclining chair or mat, and plan at least an hour: meteors come in clusters and lulls.
Works in your browser. No account needed.
Frequently asked questions
What is a shooting star?
A shooting star is a meteor: a grain of dust, usually smaller than a grain of sand, that hits Earth’s atmosphere at 11 to 72 km per second and heats the air around it until it glows, about 80 to 120 km up. Most burn up completely. Nothing about it is a star; the name comes from how it looks.
What is a meteor shower, and why do they come back every year?
Comets, and a few asteroids, leave trails of dust along their orbits. When Earth passes through one of those trails at the same point of its orbit each year, many meteors appear to fly out of one spot in the sky, the radiant, which gives the shower its name. The Perseids come from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, the Orionids and η-Aquariids from Halley’s Comet, and the Geminids from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon.
What does ZHR mean?
The Zenithal Hourly Rate is the number of meteors one observer would see in an hour under a perfectly clear, dark sky (stars down to magnitude +6.5 visible) with the radiant straight overhead. It is a standard for comparing showers, not a promise: with some light pollution, moonlight or the radiant low in the sky, you will see noticeably fewer. The rates here are the International Meteor Organization’s values.
Where do the meteor shower dates come from?
From the International Meteor Organization’s annual Meteor Shower Calendar, which lists each shower’s activity period, peak and ZHR. Only peaks published in an IMO calendar are shown as confirmed, with the time converted to your time zone where the IMO gives one. When a year’s calendar has not been checked yet, the shower is listed by the part of the month it usually peaks in, together with the previous year’s published date.
What is the best time to see shooting stars?
After midnight on a moonless night, far from city lights. In the early morning your side of Earth faces forward along its orbit, so it sweeps up more meteors, and most shower radiants climb higher. The Geminids in December are the easiest shower for evening viewing. Give your eyes 20 to 30 minutes to adjust to the dark and look at a wide area of sky rather than straight at the radiant.
Is my wish stored or sent anywhere?
No. The wish is drawn on the animation in your own browser and then forgotten. There is no account, the text is not saved on your device, and nothing about it is uploaded — you can check by using the page with your network switched off.
About this tool
This page is two things at once: a calming animated night sky with random shooting stars, and a practical meteor shower calendar. The sky is drawn on your device with twinkling stars of different brightness, a faint band of the Milky Way and a silhouette of hills and pines. Shooting stars arrive at irregular intervals, the way sporadic meteors do, each with a bright head and a fading tail. You can make it quieter, busier or watch it full screen as a relaxing background.
Make a wish sends your words with the next shooting star. It is a small, private moment: the text exists only in the animation on your screen and is forgotten as the star fades. For visitors who prefer less movement, Reduce motion follows your system setting and replaces the streaks with shooting stars that fade in place, and the animation pauses whenever the tab is hidden or the sky is scrolled out of view to save battery.
The calendar lists the meteor showers peaking in the next 12 months with their peak date, activity period, Zenithal Hourly Rate, speed, radiant constellation and the hemisphere they favour. Dates and rates come from the International Meteor Organization’s Meteor Shower Calendar, the reference used by amateur and professional meteor observers. Where the IMO gives a peak time in Universal Time, it is shown in your own time zone, and the percentage of the Moon lit at the peak is calculated with Jean Meeus’s lunar algorithms, because moonlight is the biggest spoiler of any shower.
Real shower rates vary from year to year, and the ZHR is an ideal rate for a perfect sky with the radiant overhead, so expect fewer meteors from a town or with the Moon up. The best results come from a dark site, a reclining chair, warm clothes and an hour or more of patience after midnight. The Perseids in August and the Geminids in December are the richest reliable showers of the year.
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