The Northern Taurids (NTA) peak around 5th of November, but in the UK, will be washed out by fireworks.
The Leonids (LEO) peak on 17 November and this year the Moon is favourable, so a rate of 7-8 per hour is possible.
The Geminids (GEM) peak on 13-14 December and this year will also be relatively Moon-free. If the skies are clear, then rates of 60-70 per hour are possible when the radiant is high in the southeast around midnight.
The last significant shower of the year is the Ursids (URS) which peak on the 22nd of December and again, miraculously, will be relatively unaffected by moonlight, leading to a possible rate of five per hour.
During the whole of November and December there are also many minor showers active so the background meteor flux is often high.
The Aurigids (AUR) peak on 1st September around 0100UT, and there will be no moonlight interference.
The September eta-Perseids (SPE) peak around the 9th September, but the waning gibbous Moon will interfere. Both showers have nominal rates of around five per hour but realistically two or three per hour is likely.
In October, the Orionids (ORI) peak in the early morning of 22nd, under a nearly new Moon. A rate of 12 is possible. Both the Northern and Southern Taurid peaks, on 13th October and early November, are blighted by moonlight and rates are unlikely to be even one or two per hour.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning the Draconids (DRA). This shower is very variable but the Earth may pass through a denser dust trail this year, leading to enhanced rates on or around 8th of October although a Full Moon will wash out the fainter ones.
The July Pegasids (JPE) peak on 10th of July, but will be washed out by moonlight. The Gamma Draconids (GDR) should peak 28th July and might produce an outburst this year.
The southern Delta-Aquariids (SDA) and alpha-Capricornids (CAP) peak around dawn on 30th July. Capricornids can be distinguished by a lower velocity. Combined rates of around five to six are possible.
The Perseids (PER) peak on the night of 12th/13th August are unfortunately blighted by a nearly Full Moon. Visual rates of about 30 are still possible.
The kappa Cygnids (KCG) peak a few days later and are also likely to be washed out by moonlight. However, both showers do sometimes produce bright fireballs.
The eta-Eridanids (ERI), peak around 8th August but will only really be visible at the very start of the month, due to the Moon’s waxing phase.
A fireball on 23rd April is likely to have dropped meteorites near Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk.
The night was cloudy, but the fireball was bright enough to be seen through cloud on several of hte UK Meteor Network’s cameras, and also to be picked up on some security cameras.
Analysis indicates that meteorites may have fallen in the area between Alpheton and the A14 just NE of Denham Castle (see map below).
The potential strewn field is split into two because the fireball broke up at about 40km altitude. The overview map below shows the approximate locations of the calculated zones, and more detailed maps are available from the meteor section director or from UKMON.
If you’re interested in searching, or know an astronomy society, walking group, or even detectorist group who might be interested, please take a look at the infographic below and guidance from UKFall explaining how to organize a good search and how to identify a meteorite.
Note that you must not search private land without permission, and that any finds on private property belong to the land owner who may not be the farmer, as much of the UK’s farmland is managed by tenant farmers. If you’re at all concerned stick to public land like roadsides and verges.
You can read the press release from the UK Fireball Alliance here. Details of the object’s orbit and trajectory are available here.
The April Lyrids (LYR) peaked this year on the morning of the 22nd.
There were few visual reports, but the UK Meteor Network’s cameras detected around 5000 single-station detections leading to 436 confirmed Lyrids. 193 cameras made detections from Sark to Shetland, and one meteor was detected by twenty nine cameras.
The brightest detection had a visual magnitude of -4.1 and several other very bright events were detected. The charts below shows the number of confirmed Lyrids per hour over the period from 19th to 24th April, and the distribution of magnitudes observed.
The Lyrids are caused by dust from Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which has an orbital period of around 461 years and is currently over 100 AU from Earth.
All charts and pictures courtesy of the UK Meteor Network. Fuller report available here.
This year’s Quadrantids (QUA) peak at 1500 UT on the 3rd of January. The best time to view will be after midnight when the radiant will be high in the North East. Rates of up to 60 an hour are possible and the waxing crescent Moon will not interfere too much. Note that rates tail off quite slowly and its possible you may continue to see high rates and the occasional fireball for a week or so after the peak.
There are no other significant showers till April, though there are a few minor showers.
The Comae Berenicids (COM) are active from December through to February, though rates will be under three per hour. This year’s gamma-Ursae Minorids (GUM) on 18th of January will be badly affected by moonlight. There are no meteor showers in March but the Anthelion Source is active through the spring. This large, diffuse source of meteors drifts through Virgo and Libra, heading for Scorpius.
The next major shower is the April Lyrids (LYR) which peak on the afternoon of 22nd April and will be affected by the waning Moon, though if skies are clear, you may see rates of around twelve per hour. The η-Aquariids (ETA) shortly after will be unaffected by moonlight but they are only really visible in the early morning. The peak is on the morning of the 6th of May but some will be seen from mid-April onwards so on any clear early morning you may see them. The Moon will have set, but dawn will be at 4am so you won’t have much of a window. Rates of ten per hour are possible.
Back to minor showers, the Eta Lyrids (ELY) peak on the 10th of May but will be washed out by a nearly Full Moon. The June Bootids (JBO) peak between 20th and 25th of June. Their strength is very variable – anything from zero to 100 per hour! Nothing unusual is expected this year but more observations are required so do keep an eye out. All other showers during May and June are daytime showers and so you’ll need a radio receiver to detect them. There are details of how to build one on our website.
A bright meteor caught by UKMON cameras on the 20th of November
Regular Showers
There were no member reports for the Draconids, Orionids, Leonids or Taurids this year. Even the video networks had a quiet time with only 1800 Orionids and 520 Leonids being recorded by the UK Meteor Network over the entire country. The peaks of both showers were not blessed with good weather though. The Northern and Southern Taurids were also relatively quiet with only 800 or so meteors detected by the camera network.
Fireballs
A number of non-members reported a fireball at 19:58 on the 26th of November. Observers in the North West saw it to their south with at least seven reports made via the fireball reporting form, though the IMO reports incorrectly place it about 100 miles further north than the video evidence! This highlights an issue with visual observations. The IMO report is here https://tinyurl.com/2z7ny6mb and the video data are here https://tinyurl.com/mv34n645
Another bright event was reported over East Anglia on the 15th of November, at about 18:11. This was reported by 58 people, two of them SPA members. Unfortunately, no photographic matches have been found due to inclement weather. The lowest point was over the sea east of Aldeburgh. The IMO report is available here https://ukmon.imo.net/imo_view/event/2024/6948
Another bright meteor, this one from the 18th of October
This year’s Perseids were surprisingly underreported by the public. Mary and I spotted around 50 Perseids over a 4-hour period on the night of the 12th. This is far below the expected rate of 60 per hour, but reflects the fact that humans can only observe about a third of the sky, and often miss faint meteors.
Perhaps because of the weather, and perhaps because it was a Monday night – and perhaps because there was an auroral display on the 13th which probably washed out fainter meteors – there were only a few reports from members this year. Karen Martin spotted ten Perseids during a 100-minute period on the night of the 11th. Robin Scagell was out with his camera and mark-1 eyeballs, and on the early morning of the 11th he saw three Perseids and two sporadics before cloud intervened, while he saw 24 Perseids and four sporadics in a three-hour period on the night of the 11th/12th. All the reported events were pretty faint, probably magnitude zero or less.
Our meteor cameras picked up 1300 meteors on the same night, but then they can see two magnitudes fainter or six times dimmer than humans. In fact, there were so many Perseids detected by the Global Meteor Network that the data processing only caught up by early October!
Hourly detections of Perseids. Data from the UK Meteor Network with permission
The IMO did receive reports of around half a dozen Perseid fireballs, some of which can be tied in with video network reports from the UK Meteor Network, but there were no meteorite dropping events. The best of the fireballs was over the sea between England and Belgium, and reached magnitude -7.3
A Perseid fireball from 2024-08-14 at 00:03. Image from the UK Meteor Network, with permission.
Members Photos
Robin Scagell was out on the evenings of 12th and 13th and sent in several photos. In several photos ou can see some red aurora behind the meteor! Mary McIntyre also captured auroral activity with a meteor, as well as colour in the meteor’s tail. Another picture from Robin shows a bright sporadic at the left with a fainter Perseid on the right. The brightly lit cirrus cloud you can see in this picture probably hit many fainter meteors. The bright sporadic left a train behind which can be seen in a second picture. Other photos are from myself.
Click on an image to see a bigger version.
Other Showers
There are a great many other minor showers during this period – the International Meteor Organization lists around 70 – however none of them get above a rate of two to three per hour and even the video networks didn’t report more than a handful.
The table below shows the relative abundance of confirmed meteors for the top five minor showers, compared to the Perseids. As you can see, the Perseids are at least thirty-five times more abundant!
However, don’t be discouraged: with so many showers in progress at once, you are likely to see meteors pretty much all night from one shower or another. Our cameras typically pick up 80-100 meteors every clear night in August and September even though the nights are short.
Code
Name
Peak Date
Matches
PER
Perseids
12-Aug
8262
KAP
kappa Perseids
10-Aug
231
AUD
August Draconids
01-Aug
226
NUE
nu Eridanids
05-Sep
220
NDA
Northern delta Aquariids
01-Aug
213
SPE
September epsilon Perseids
10-Sep
157
Source: UK Meteor Network data archive, with permission.
Bright sporadic through Pisces and fainter Perseid going past SaturnBright sporadic through Vulpecula with fainter Perseid Perseid going up through Cas towards Gamma CepheiPerseid past Head of DracoPerseid past Iota Herculis and Head of DracoPerseid through UMa. Some green auroral activityPerseid with Aurora 20240813-020400 Subsequent frame showing train which persisted faintly
The most interesting event of the last period was an extraordinary Earthgazer meteor that travelled from Austria to England, in only thirteen seconds. This event on the 7th of July was picked up by over 30 cameras spread across Europe. There’s more about it on our website here https://tinyurl.com/mu2sum9y
Visual Reports
Several visual reports were made via the fireball reporting page on our website.
Stephen Celt, Katy Ross, Peter Tribe, Tim Powell, Terry Wood, Julian Heming, Delyth Roberts, Brian Evans, Antonia Mottola and Alasdair Taylor reported a fireball on the 18th of July which was seen by 352 observers in France and the UK, and which was probably over Brittany, and Holly Graves reported seeing a fireball on the 25th of July which was also seen from the Isles of Scilly.
Video Network Reports
The UK Meteor Network reported 750 Delta Aquariids and 444 Capricornids including three fireballs, plus decent rates of 100-200 from the minor showers Phi Piscids, June Aquilids, c Andromedids and zeta Cassiopids. These showers are all in July. There’s a lot more detail, including pictures and video, on their data website https://archive.ukmeteors.co.uk
