Today, December 21 is the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere. The days will soon start to get longer and brighter. And if you want to enjoy a bit more light in the hours of darkness then you can go out and look for the Ursids meteor shower which peaks in the early morning of December 22.
This shower is exclusive to the Northern hemisphere, appearing to radiate from Ursa Minor (the small bear or focusing on just its brighter stars as “Little Dipper”). The radiation point is just 14 degrees from the constellation's most famous star, Polaris AKA the North Star.
The Ursids are a moderately active shower usually averaging 10 meteors per hour with the occasional outburst reaching 50 per hour, although this is not forecasted for this year.
The Moon is waning but it is still 90 percent full making it a bit more difficult to spot the meteors, especially if there’s light pollution in your location. The good news is that if you’re located above 14 degrees north of latitude, the radiant never sets so you can catch it all night.
The parent body of the Ursids is the comet 8P/Tuttle which orbits around the Sun every 13.6 years. Its last closest passage near the Sun was this last August but it doesn’t seem like there is a connection between its perihelion and an increase in activity. Still, a few meteors are better than none.
If you don't fancy waiting for the darker times of the night, you might still be able to catch Comet Leonard with a good binocular.
