Best nights to stargaze — next 7 days
Pick a location and we’ll tell you the best nights to head out over the next week, plus which planets, meteor showers, and satellite passes you’ll actually be able to see.
Where are you watching from?
Tonight at a glance
Best nights — next 7 days
What you can see tonight
Planets above the horizon
Active meteor showers
Bright constellations this season
ISS passes — next 3 days
How the score works
Each night is rated out of 100 based on three things that make or break a stargazing trip: how cloudy it’ll be during full darkness (weighted most), how much moonlight is washing out the sky, and whether any meteor showers are peaking. Anything above 70 is a good night; 85+ is excellent. Get away from city lights if you can.
The Eta Aquariids are the best May meteor shower visible from New Zealand — and one of the few where the Southern Hemisphere has a genuine advantage over the north. The debris comes from Halley's Comet, the meteors move fast enough to leave glowing trails, and from New Zealand the radiant climbs high enough in the pre-dawn sky to give strong rates every year.
When to watch the Eta Aquariids
The Eta Aquariids peak around 5–6 May each year, but the shower has a broad, flat maximum — any morning between about 3 May and 10 May will deliver a good show. The shower is a pre-dawn event: the radiant does not rise until around 2 am, and rates climb through the small hours to a peak in the last dark hour before morning twilight.
Where to look from New Zealand
Look to the east between 3 am and dawn. The radiant sits in the constellation Aquarius, not far from the star Eta Aquarii, which climbs from the eastern horizon through the pre-dawn hours. From New Zealand that radiant reaches a comfortable altitude before sunrise — much higher than it does from most of the Northern Hemisphere, which is why this shower tends to produce better rates from Auckland or Christchurch than from London or New York.
How to get the best view
- Set an alarm for 3 am. This is a pre-dawn shower — there is no point going out before midnight.
- Pick a site with a clear eastern horizon. Hills, tall trees or buildings to the east will cut visible meteors in half.
- Layer up. May mornings inland can drop below freezing even in the upper North Island.
- Let your eyes dark-adapt for 20 minutes. Don't look at your phone — the screen resets your night vision.
- Lie back so you are looking at roughly 60 degrees up. Meteors radiate outwards from the east, and the longest, most dramatic streaks appear away from the radiant.
- Check the Moon phase. A bright Moon near peak will wash out the fainter meteors — the tool at the top of this page gives the Moon forecast for your exact night.
- A thermos and a reclining chair are the difference between a miserable hour and a magical one.
What causes the Eta Aquariids
The Eta Aquariids are dust shed by Halley's Comet — the same comet that produces the Orionids in October. Halley's orbit crosses Earth's path in two places, so Earth runs through its dust stream twice a year. Although Halley itself last passed through the inner solar system in 1986 and will not return until 2061, the stream of debris it has been shedding for thousands of years still loops around the Sun on roughly the same orbit, and Earth ploughs into it reliably every May.
The meteors themselves
Eta Aquariid meteors hit the atmosphere at about 66 kilometres per second — among the fastest of any annual shower. That high speed means they commonly leave glowing ionisation trails that linger for several seconds after the meteor itself has gone. From a dark site in New Zealand, under clear skies in the hour before dawn, realistic counts are 30 to 50 meteors per hour, with occasional bright fireballs that light up the ground.
Forecast for your night
Use the live viewing panel at the top of this page to see whether the sky will be clear where you are. For the full night-by-night cloud, Moon and darkness forecast across every New Zealand region, visit the New Zealand Stargazing Forecast.