The Daytime Chi Capricornids meteor shower
Key facts
- Peak
- around 13–14 February
- Active
- late January to late February
- Rate at peak (ZHR)
- weak on radio; not visible by eye
- Speed
- about 22 km/s
- Radiant
- Capricornus (close to the Sun in the sky)
- Parent body
- Unknown
Dates shift slightly from year to year. This year's peak is in the events calendar, and the meteor-shower planner shows how high the radiant climbs from where you live, night by night.
The Daytime Chi Capricornids are a weak February shower detected by radar. They follow the Daytime Capricornids-Sagittariids by about two weeks and come from a nearby part of the sky.
Discovery and nature. The shower was identified by radar surveys in the mid-twentieth century. Its radiant lies in Capricornus, only a few tens of degrees from the Sun, so it is above the horizon almost entirely in daylight. The meteoroids move slowly compared with Earth, entering the atmosphere at a little over 20 kilometres per second, which means they are on orbits not very different from Earth's in direction and tilt.
Uncertain timing. The theoretical maximum is around 13 February, but radio observations near that date have often found only slight activity, sometimes peaking up to a day late. The shower is one of the least well studied of the daytime streams, and different radio surveys disagree about how strong it is.
The parent. No parent body has been identified.
What to expect. Nothing by eye. By radio, a small rise in meteor echoes in mid-February, easily lost in the background of sporadic meteors, those that belong to no recognisable shower.
Why it matters. Weak daytime showers are hard to study, but they help to fill in the picture of how dust is spread around the inner Solar System. Each shower is a separate stream with its own history, and radio observers who count meteors through the whole year provide the long, steady records needed to find them.
How to observe. A radio receiver tuned to a distant transmitter will pick up reflections from meteor trails at any hour. Running it through February and comparing the counts with other months is the best way to reveal this shower.
Viewing tips
- Use radio detection, as the radiant is too close to the Sun to watch.
- Record echoes continuously through February for comparison.
- Look for a small rise around 13–14 February, perhaps a day later.
- Never point eyes or optical instruments towards the Sun.
- Treat any result as useful, because data on this shower are scarce.