I think it’s fair to say that the more stars you see in the backcountry, the better. Good stargazing conditions require low light pollution and good sky clarity. Light pollution is minimized by avoiding moonlight, sunlight, city lights, campfires, flashlights and phones. Good sky clarity occurs when clouds, humidity, and particles in the air are minimized. Celestial events such as meteor showers provide additional excitement to a night of stargazing.
If you are looking to plan a trip in which your goal is to experience the best stargazing possible, follow the tips below:
All of these tips are straightforward except going on the date of a celestial event. Celestial events are astronomical occurrences such as meteor showers, solar and lunar eclipses, and planetary alignments. Astronomers predict the time and location that these can be best viewed.
Most outdoor enthusiasts are not interested in specific celestial events, but do enjoy seeing shooting stars. Timing your trip on the peak activity date of a meteor shower will increase your chance of seeing shooting stars. Learn more about meteor showers below.
A shooting star, also known as a meteor, is a tiny piece of space debris that enters Earth's atmosphere and burns up. This process emits a bright light that streaks across the sky. A meteor shower occurs when Earth travels through the orbital path of a comet. Comets orbit around the sun and spread debris over their orbital path as they are heated. When the earth travels through this debris-rich path, it is more likely for the debris to make it into the atmosphere as shooting stars. Because Earth passes through the same comet paths every year, we have annual meteor showers with predictable peak activity dates.
While each meteor shower is associated with the debris trail of a specific comet, they are named after the constellation in which they appear to originate from when viewing the shower. For example, the Ursids shower, which peaks at the end of December every year, is associated with Comet 8P/Tuttle and is named after the Ursa Minor constellation.
The strength of a meteor shower is determined by the density of the comet’s debris stream that Earth passes through. The Quadrantids, Geminids, and Perseids meteor showers are often the strongest meteor showers of the year because they are associated with high-density debris streams. In ideal conditions, these showers produce an average of around 100 meteors per hour at their peak. However, debris streams are not perfectly uniform and change over time, so the actual meteor rate and time of peak intensity of a meteor shower is hard to predict. The Leonids meteor shower typically produces 15 meteors per hour at peak, but roughly every 33 years Earth travels through a particularly dense portion of Comet Tempel-Tuttle’s debris stream, resulting in hundreds or even thousands of meteors per hour.
Sadly, the peak dates of meteor showers do not always align with a favorable moon phase. Of the eleven major meteor showers in 2025, five of them fall on dates that will have a moon phase less than 25%. The holy grail day for watching shooting stars is when the peak of a strong meteor shower occurs during a new moon.
The Stargazing planning tool is a spreadsheet (click to download) that lists the peak date, time, and day of the week for every major meteor shower over the next 20 years, along with the moon phase occurring during each shower. Its sortable format makes it easy to identify low moonlight high intensity meteor showers to plan a trip around. See the Stargazing planning tool article for more info on how to use it and how it was made.
If you cannot time your trip during the peak of a meteor shower, the next best option is to go stargazing during a new moon. The second sheet on the Stargazing Planning Tool lists the date and day of the week of every new moon and full moon in the next 20 years. You can sort this sheet to find new moons that occur on weekends.
Once you choose a date to go stargazing, it’s best to do some additional research to maximize your stargazing experience. If you’re going during a meteor shower, use a detailed celestial event calendar or a simple web search to find information on how long the shower will last, where to look in the sky, and what type of meteors typically fall during the shower. You can also use a clear sky chart to identify the stargazing conditions of your chosen location. The “darkness” meter is especially useful for identifying the darkest time of the night. The other meters are more useful for advanced astronomers viewing and photographing the sky with magnified lenses.
(Date posted: 2025-03-29)