The July Gamma Draconids meteor shower
Key facts
- Peak
- around 28 July
- Active
- about 25–31 July
- Rate at peak (ZHR)
- about 5
- Speed
- 27 km/s
- Radiant
- Draco (near Eltanin, Gamma Draconis, the brightest star of the Dragon's head)
- 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 July Gamma Draconids are a short, northern shower that was recognised only in the twenty-first century, from the work of amateur video observers.
Discovery. In 2009 Takashi Kanamori, an observer in Tokyo, used two years of video recordings from cameras at several sites in Japan to identify eleven previously unlisted showers. Each meteor seen from two or more cameras could be traced in three dimensions and its orbit calculated, so groups of meteors with almost identical orbits stood out. One of these groups radiated from near Gamma Draconis in late July. Video networks in Europe and North America have since confirmed it as a regular annual shower.
The radiant. The meteors appear to come from the head of Draco, the Dragon, a small lozenge of four stars between Vega and the Plough. Gamma Draconis, also called Eltanin, is the brightest of them. From the UK this part of the sky is high overhead in the late evening of July and never sets.
The parent. No parent body has been found. The meteors' moderate speed and the shape of their orbit suggest a comet, but it has not been identified.
What to expect. Up to about five meteors an hour at a sharp peak around 28 July. The meteors are fairly slow, at 27 kilometres per second, which makes them easier to follow and to photograph. The peak coincides with the build-up to the Southern Delta Aquariids, Alpha Capricornids and Perseids, so the night sky is busier than in early July.
Viewing from the UK. Late July nights are getting darker, though Scotland still has a bright sky around midnight. The radiant is very high from the UK all night, which is ideal: when a radiant is overhead, meteors appear in every direction.
Viewing worldwide. This is a northern shower; from the southern hemisphere the radiant stays low or never rises.
Viewing tips
- Find the four stars of the Dragon's head, between Vega and the Plough.
- Watch from late evening, when the radiant is nearly overhead from the UK.
- Look out for slow meteors that point back to the Dragon's head.
- Tell them from Perseids, which are much faster and come from the north-east.
- Lie back on a reclining chair, since the radiant is close to the zenith.