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Welcome to the 2006 International Meteor Organization (IMO) Meteor Shower Calendar. A fine year is in prospect, with the major Quadrantid and Geminid maxima largely moonless, together with the Lyrid —π-Puppid period in April, the possible June Boötid spell in late June, the best from the July-August Aquarid-Capricornid sources, the α-Aurigids, and then the Orionid, Leonid —α-Monocerotid and Coma Berenicid —Ursid epochs towards the year’s end. Heightened Leonid activity is again a possibility, albeit not of storm proportions. The sole major shower lunar casualty is the Perseid peak in August, but even this might yield enhanced ZHRs. Do not forget that ideally, monitoring of meteor activity should be carried on throughout the rest of the year, however! We appreciate that this is not practical for many people, and this Calendar was first devised back in 1991 as a means of helping observers deal with reality by highlighting times when a particular effort might most usefully be employed. Although we include timing predictions for all the more active night-time and daytime shower maxima, based on the best data available, 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 collected are for visual shower maxima, so this must be borne in mind when employing other observing techniques.
