Meteor shower
Lyrids
Poor from New Zealand
The oldest recorded shower, with observations going back 2,700 years. Modest but reliable, and occasionally throws a surprise outburst.
Computed from standard astronomical algorithms · Shower parameters: IMO working list of visual meteor showers · Reviewed Oct 2026 · Method
From New Zealand
Radiant at +33°, low in the northern sky before dawn from New Zealand. Rates here are a fraction of the northern figure — a few per hour on a good year.
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 | 32% lit | Waxing crescent | Dark — good |
| 2027 | 97% lit | Waning gibbous | Badly moonlit |
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 18 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.