Department of Physics and Astronomy · Western University

Denis Vida

Adjunct Research Professor · Research Scientist

Sky:

Global Meteor Network, live

The Global Meteor Network is a worldwide network of low-cost video cameras, run by volunteers, that records meteors every clear night and computes their trajectories and orbits. I started it in 2018 (read its history); today it has more than 1,600 cameras in 45 countries. The plots below are loaded straight from the GMN servers, so they change from day to day. All GMN data are open under the CC BY 4.0 licence.

Where the cameras are

GMN cameras (locations rounded to half a degree; not every camera runs every night)

Last night's meteors

Radiant density map of the meteors observed by the GMN in the latest day, in Sun-centred ecliptic coordinates
Where on the sky the latest day's meteors came from. Each dot is a radiant, the point a meteor appears to fly out of. The map uses Sun-centred ecliptic coordinates, which keep each shower in nearly the same place from night to night, so showers show up as tight clusters. Most meteors on any night are sporadic, meaning they belong to no shower. Updated daily by the GMN.

Meteor shower activity this year

Activity of the major meteor showers over the current year measured by the GMN
Activity of the main meteor showers, given as the zenithal hourly rate (the number of meteors one observer would see per hour under a perfectly dark sky), measured by the GMN this year. NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office uses these measurements to warn spacecraft operators about shower activity. More flux plots.

Explore the GMN

The people behind the network

The GMN exists because more than 900 volunteers, schools, clubs and observatories build and run cameras on their own time, many of them for years. They are partners in the science, and we thank them all.

Camera operators

Organizations

In memory of GMN members

If you are a GMN participant and would like your name changed or removed, please email dvida@uwo.ca.