The year sees two of the “big
three” major shower peaks – the Perseids and Geminids – mostly
or entirely free from moonlight interference, but the third, the
Quadrantids, are badly moonlit, along with the
alpha-Centaurids, eta-Aquarids, and Southern delta-Aquarids.
Other more active sources like the Lyrids, Orionids and Leonids,
as well as many minor showers in the second half of the year,
plus several uncertain sources such as the pi-Puppids and June
Lyrids, enjoy often moonless skies. What the June Bootids may do
in 2004 needs checking too.
Do not forget that monitoring of meteor activity should ideally be carried on throughout the rest
of the year, however! We appreciate that this is not practical
for many observers, and this Calendar was devised as a means of
helping observers deal with reality by highlighting times when a
particular effort may most usefully be employed. Although we
include timing predictions for all the more active night-time
and daytime shower maxima, based on the best available data,
please note that in many cases, such maxima are not known more
precisely than to the nearest 1° of solar longitude (even less
accurately for the daytime radio showers, which have only
recently begun to receive regular attention again). In addition,
variations in individual showers from year to year mean past
returns are at best only a guide as to when even major shower
peaks can be expected, plus as some showers are known to show
particle mass-sorting within their meteoroid streams, the radio,
telescopic, video, visual and photographic meteor maxima may
occur at different times from one another, and not necessarily
just in these showers. The majority of data available are for
visual shower maxima, so this must be borne in mind when
employing other observing techniques.