How to watch the Leonids meteor shower

if you want To get into stargazing in 2025, there’s no better place to start than watching a meteor shower. A meteor shower or shooting star occurs when Earth’s orbit crosses a path of debris left by a comet and that material burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Watching a meteor shower is one of the most accessible ways to engage with the night sky.

Next is the Leonid shower, which continues throughout November and peaks around November 16-18. This is just one of nine major meteor showers that will grace the skies in 2025, and details of when they will appear in the Northern Hemisphere are listed below – so mark your calendars for these.

How to watch a meteor shower

You don’t need special equipment to see a meteor shower—in fact, using devices like binoculars or a telescope actually prevents meteors from being seen because they move too fast to be seen through the lens of such equipment. All you need is your eyes, a dark sky with little or no moonlight, and a location away from excess light, as moonlight and light pollution can destroy shooting stars.

Note that the moon appears (rises) and disappears (sets) in the night sky at different times depending on the time zone you are in. All moonrise/set times in this piece are for the eastern United States. You can use tools like the Time and Date Moonrise/Sunset Calendar or this tool from the US Naval Observatory to check exact moonrise/set times in your exact location.

You should allow your eyes to adjust to the dark for about half an hour. If you need to use a flashlight outdoors, use a red flashlight instead of a white one to maintain night vision.

The name of each meteor shower is derived from its radiance or the constellation from which the shower appears to originate. The beam from a meteor shower usually needs to be above the horizon to see the meteors. You don’t need to look directly at the radiation to see a meteorite. After sunrise, shooting stars will be visible across the sky.

If you need help finding the shower, you can use an app like Stellarium, which can also tell you when the shower will be above the horizon at your exact location. If you really want to maximize the number of meteors you see, you should watch the sky when the shower is at its highest point in the sky. However, you don’t need to wait until the radiance is at its highest to enjoy the show – you should be able to see plenty of shooting stars as long as the radiance is above the horizon.

The next big meteor shower

Leonids are active from about November 3rd to December 2nd. According to the American Meteor Society, they have a sharp peak and produce the most meteors during the night from November 16 to November 17. However, other organizations predict that the rainfall will peak from November 17 to November 18. At the height of the Leonids, you can expect to see about 15 meteors per hour under dark skies.

Although the Leonids produce fewer meteors than most other large meteor showers, they are known for producing high-speed, bright, fireball meteors.