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 Leonids are a November shower famous for occasional, spectacular meteor storms — brief outbursts when rates jump from a handful per hour to thousands. Those storms only happen when Earth passes through a fresh ribbon of comet dust, which is a once-every-33-years event at best. In ordinary years the shower is modest but beautifully reliable: fast, often colourful meteors streaking outwards from the head of Leo the Lion.
When to watch the Leonids
The Leonids peak on the night of 17–18 November each year, with activity running from about 6 November to 30 November. The peak is sharp — rates climb and fall within about 24 hours — so the night of peak matters. Next Leonid storm-class outburst is not expected before 2099.
Where to look from New Zealand
Look east from about 2 am onwards. The radiant is in the constellation Leo, just above the backwards question-mark of stars known as the Sickle. From New Zealand, Leo rises in the east shortly after midnight through November and climbs to a reasonable altitude by the small hours. Face east but keep a wide field of view — Leonid meteors often leave long, arcing trails well away from the radiant itself.
How to get the best view
- Don't bother before 1 am. The radiant is below the horizon — you'll see nothing.
- Pick a site with a clear eastern view. Any hill, tall tree or building between you and the east cuts the shower in half.
- Drive at least 30 minutes from any city. The further from light pollution, the better.
- Twenty minutes of dark adaptation, then don't look at a screen again until you're done.
- November nights are mild but damp — a groundsheet under you keeps the dew off.
- Check the Moon. A bright Moon hurts this shower more than most because Leonid meteors are fast and brief — the tool above shows Moon rise times for your location.
- Lie back. Face east. Watch for several hours — Leonid activity can pulse, and standout moments arrive unannounced.
What causes the Leonids
The Leonids are produced by Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, a short-period comet that loops the Sun every 33 years. Each time it returns it lays down a fresh ribbon of dust, and the most active Leonid years happen when Earth crosses one of those fresh ribbons. That is what produced the legendary 1833 and 1966 storms, when observers reported meteors falling so thickly they could not count them. The next close pass of Tempel-Tuttle is in 2031, but models suggest Earth will not cross a dense filament then — the next major storm is likely to be much later this century.
The meteors themselves
Leonid meteors are the fastest of any annual shower — about 71 kilometres per second, nearly a quarter of a million kilometres an hour. That enormous speed means many Leonids leave long ionisation trails that glow for several seconds after the meteor itself has finished, and a disproportionate number burn bright enough to qualify as fireballs. Typical counts from a dark NZ site in a non-storm year are 10 to 15 per hour at peak.
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.