Meteor shower
Southern Delta Aquariids
Good from New Zealand
A long, gentle shower of faint meteors that favours southern observers, overlapping the start of the Perseid period.
Computed from standard astronomical algorithms · Shower parameters: IMO working list of visual meteor showers · Reviewed Oct 2026 · Method
From New Zealand
A southern shower by name and by nature — the radiant at −16° is well placed from New Zealand. The peak is broad rather than sharp, so the nights either side of it are nearly as good, which makes it forgiving of cloud.
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 | 99% lit | Waning gibbous | Badly moonlit |
| 2027 | 12% lit | Waning crescent | 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 25 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.