The Draconid shower, also known as the Giacobinids, is unique in that its radiant point rises to the highest point in the sky as darkness falls. As a result, you’ll see more Draconids in the evenings than in the mornings after midnight.
- Predicted peak: is predicted for October 9, 2023
- When to watch: The best time to watch the Draconids in 2023 is from the evening of October 8 until the early hours of October 9. Most Draconid meteors will not be affected by the waning crescent moon (23% illuminated).
- Overall duration of shower: October 8 through 9.
- Radiant: Highest in the sky in the evening hours.
- Nearest moon phase: Last quarter moon is 13:48 UTC on October 6. In 2023, a waning crescent moon will be visible on the mornings of October 8 and 9.
- Expected meteors at peak, under ideal conditions: Under a dark sky with no moon, you might catch 10 Draconid meteors per hour.
Note: The Draconid shower is unique in that the radiant point rises to the highest point in the sky as darkness falls. This means that, unlike many meteor showers, Draconids are more likely to fly in the evening hours after midnight than in the morning hours before midnight. In most years, this shower is a snoozer, producing only a handful of languid meteors per hour. But beware if the Dragon awakens! In rare cases, the ferocious Draco has been known to spew hundreds of meteors in a single hour. This possibility keeps many skywatchers outside during this shower, even in the moonlight.
Be sure to watch in a dark sky.
The Draconids’ parent comet
The parent comet of the Draconids meteor shower, the object responsible for the dust burning up in our atmosphere, is the small periodic comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. On December 20, 1900, from the Nice Observatory in France, Michel Giacobini observed this comet in the evening sky. The comet was faint and was located in the constellation Aquarius’ southern hemisphere. Giacobini was using the largest telescope for comet hunting at the time, a 46-centimeter (18-inch diameter lens) refractor telescope. Despite the fact that the comet is periodic, with a 6.6-year orbit around the sun, observers missed it when it returned. The comet was discovered on October 23, 1913, by Ernst Zinner of Germany while looking at variable stars. This was his sole discovery of a comet.
Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner is nearly as close to the sun as Earth is. The spacecraft then returns 6.6 years later, just past Jupiter’s orbit. It was visited by the International Cometary Explorer in September 1985, making it the first comet to be visited by a space probe.
Draconid meteor storms
The comet’s debris is not distributed evenly around its orbit. Much of it is still clumped together near the comet. As a result, when the comet returns to our area, it can produce a spectacular meteor shower, known as a meteor storm, with hundreds or even thousands of meteors per hour. This happened in 1933 and 1946, with thousands of meteors per hour. It resulted in increased counts but no meteor storms in 1985, 1998, and 2018. In 2011, European observers saw over 600 meteors per hour.
The comet’s most recent perihelion occurred on September 10, 2018. On the same night, Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner passed Earth for the first time in 72 years. As a result, the Draconids exploded in 2018. We shared the best photos of the comet as it passed safely by.
Because this comet has a nearly seven-year orbital period, the next perihelion will not occur until 2025. As a result, we do not anticipate an outburst this year. However, no one knows for certain.
Where is the radiant point?
The radiant point for the Draconid meteor shower is near the stars Eltanin and Rastaban in the northern sky, near the head of the constellation Draco the Dragon. Because of their far-north location, the Draconids are best seen from the Northern Hemisphere. Look at the two graphs above.
Because the winged Dragon, the shower’s radiant point, flies highest in the October sky at nightfall, the Draconids are best in the evening rather than before dawn. The radiant point sinks lower in the sky as night falls, regardless of where you are on Earth.
You don’t need to find Draco the Dragon to keep an eye on the Draconids. These meteors fly in all directions across the starry sky. However, tracking down Draco is both enjoyable and simple. The two charts above demonstrate two simple methods for locating it. From the Big Dipper, you can star-hop. Alternatively, you can star-hop from the Summer Triangle.
Draconid meteor shower has a rich history
In the early twentieth century, astronomers speculated that meteors and comets were related. So, of course, they attempted to connect various comets to the spectacular meteor showers that occasionally fall from the sky.
Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner was a particularly enticing target for forecasting. Remember that it returns every 6.6 years, and its closest point to the sun is roughly the same as the distance between Earth and the sun.
The astronomers were not disappointed by Comet Giacobini-Zinner.
The relationship between 21P/Giacobini-Zinner and its meteors, which was widely studied and debated among professional astronomers in the early twentieth century, explains why the Draconid meteor shower is sometimes referred to as the Giacobinids.
Visit the Smithsonian and NASA Astronomy Abstract Service for a taste of this shower’s history. C.C. Wylie wrote an article in 1934 called The Meteors from Giacobini’s Comet. It tells the story of the famous meteor storm of 1933.
Draconid meteor shower from the Southern Hemisphere?
It’s conceivable. You won’t catch many if you’re so far south that the radiant point in the constellation Draco doesn’t rise above your horizon, or rises only briefly.
To see Draco’s stars from the Southern Hemisphere, you’d have to be pretty close to the equator. Assume you live in northern Australia, specifically in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, which is located at 12 degrees south latitude. If this is the case, the stars Rastaban and Eltanin will be visible very close to your north-northwestern horizon at nightfall in early October (assuming an unobstructed northern horizon). These stars would set in the early evening. As a result, you wouldn’t see Draco’s head again until the following evening at nightfall.
Why so early in the evening? It’s because, no matter where you live in the world, the head of Draco reaches upper transit (the highest point in your sky) in early October at around 5 p.m. local time.
Thus, meteors would be visible only from latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, even those as far north as northern Australia. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere and are looking for a Draconid, try looking as soon as it gets dark on October 7 and 8. And don’t hold your breath.
Bottom line
The Draconid meteor shower, also known as the Giacobinids, will most likely produce the most meteors in 2023 on the evening of October 8 and into the early hours of October 9.
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