Watching a meteor shower
Meteor showers happen when the Earth passes through a stream of dust left by a comet. The meteors all seem to come from one point in the sky, the radiant. The higher the radiant, the more meteors you'll see, so the best time is usually after midnight, when your side of the Earth faces forward into the stream. Moonlight drowns out the fainter meteors, so a shower near new moon is much better than one near full moon. You don't need a telescope or binoculars: lie back somewhere dark, give your eyes 20 minutes to adapt, and look about halfway up the sky.
Meteor scatter radio
Each meteor leaves a trail of ionised gas that briefly reflects VHF signals, allowing contacts of 500 to 2,000 km on 6m and 2m. Radio amateurs use the MSK144 mode in WSJT-X, with timed transmissions that catch the short pings. Showers boost the rate, but meteor scatter works every day from random meteors, best around dawn. The daytime Arietids and Zeta Perseids in June are invisible to the eye but are among the strongest showers of the year for radio.
The MSK144 calling frequencies are 50.280 MHz and 144.360 MHz in Europe, and 50.260 MHz and 144.150 MHz in North America. The digital mode frequencies page lists the rest, and the beam heading calculator gives the direction to aim.
Questions
What is the best meteor shower of the year?
The Geminids in mid-December, with a ZHR of about 150, and the Perseids in mid-August, with about 100 and warm nights in the northern hemisphere.
What time is best to watch?
Usually from midnight until dawn, when the radiant is high. For the Geminids, it's good from mid-evening.
Does the moon matter?
Yes. A bright moon can cut the number of visible meteors by more than half. The table shows how much of the moon will be lit at each peak.
What is meteor scatter?
Bouncing VHF radio signals off the ionised trails of meteors to make contacts of up to about 2,000 km.