New moon promises optimal viewing for Perseid meteor shower
Astronomers say the 2026 Perseid meteor shower could produce up to 100 meteors per hour under ideal dark-sky conditions, aided by a new moon and favorable timing.
The peak of the Perseid meteor shower on Wednesday night into Thursday morning is expected to offer especially clear skies for observers in the Northern Hemisphere, thanks to a new-moon phase that will keep the sky dark. NASA estimates that under optimal conditions as many as 50 to 100 meteors per hour could be visible, while the American Meteor Society projects 30 to 50 per hour from rural locations.
The shower originates from debris left by comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 133 years and will not return until 2125. The meteors will appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, with the best viewing window between midnight and dawn when Perseus is high in the sky.
"We don’t have to suffer through a cold winter night to get a good view of meteors," said astronomer Zach Vanderbosch of the McDonald Observatory in Texas.
"New moon means we don’t have moonlight flooding the sky, and you tend to see way more meteors as a result," said Aparna Venkatesan of the University of San Francisco.
Both experts recommend finding a dark site away from city lights and clouds, allowing eyes to adjust for about thirty minutes, and focusing on a fixed patch of sky while watching for brief, bright streaks. Venkatesan plans to observe from the Sierra Nevada range.