Geminids 2026
How many Geminids will I see from where I live?
The Geminids are the year's best meteor shower, and you need no telescope or binoculars: your eyes, a coat and a dark corner. This page computes the count for your sky, hour by hour, and for a dark site, so you can see what light pollution costs.
Maximum: 14 December at about 14:00 UT (14:00 in London), in daylight for Europe. It falls between two nights that are equally good: 13→14 and 14→15. The table shows the first. Time from the International Meteor Organization's 2026 calendar, as quoted by calendars that cite it.
Your sky
London, United Kingdom · the largest city of your country, as a starting point
Any town of 1,000 people or more, anywhere in the world.
What you can expect
From London: about 21 meteors an hour at best, around 1:00. From a dark site: about 142 an hour, around 1:00.
The only difference between the two numbers is the sky: the dark site shows about 7 times as many.
These are rates for an attentive observer lying back with a clear sky. A first-time observer typically counts about half, and clouds count for everything.
Hour by hour
| Hour | Radiant height | Your sky | Dark site |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18:00 | 13° | 4 | 35 |
| 19:00 | 21° | 6 | 54 |
| 20:00 | 30° | 11 | 75 |
| 21:00 | 39° | 14 | 95 |
| 22:00 | 48° | 17 | 112 |
| 23:00 | 58° | 19 | 127 |
| 0:00 | 66° | 20 | 137 |
| 1:00 ★ best hour | 71° | 21 | 142 |
| 2:00 | 71° | 21 | 141 |
| 3:00 | 65° | 20 | 136 |
| 4:00 | 57° | 19 | 125 |
| 5:00 | 48° | 16 | 111 |
| 6:00 | 38° | 14 | 93 |
Dark site compared: Bortle 3 (faintest star about magnitude 6.8).
The Moon
The Moon (19% lit) is above the horizon for 2 of the dark hours. The table has already taken its light off your count (heuristic).
How to watch
- You need nothing but your eyes. A telescope or binoculars shows a tiny patch of sky; meteors cross the whole of it.
- Lie back in a reclining chair or on a mat, wrapped warmly. December nights are cold, and you will be there for an hour.
- Give your eyes 30 minutes in the dark, and keep your phone dimmed or away: one look at a bright screen undoes it.
- Look about 45° up, to one side of the radiant (in Gemini, near Castor). Meteors are longer, and so easier to see, away from it.
- Unlike most showers, the Geminids are already good in the evening, once the radiant has risen. They are medium-speed and often bright.
How the numbers are made
Observed hourly rate = ZHR × sin(radiant height) × r^(limiting magnitude − 6.5). Physics: the formula, and the radiant's height, computed for your position.
The ZHR (about 150 for the Geminids) is an ideal: the count for an observer with the radiant at the zenith under a sky where stars to magnitude 6.5 are visible. Almost nobody sees it. It is also why the count falls so steeply with light pollution: r is about 2.6, so each magnitude of sky lost divides the count by 2.6.
Heuristics, not physics: the faintest star by Bortle class (a conventional table, up to half a magnitude out for a real sky), the Moon's effect (1.5 magnitudes at full, scaled by how lit it is) and counting only when the Sun is below 12° under the horizon.