NASA -  If you're the type of person who enjoys a bit of arctic chill on a moonlit winter night, then the 2000 Quadrantid meteor shower could be for you.

The shower stretches from Dec. 28, 1999 to Jan. 7, 2000, with a sharp maximum on Jan. 4 at 0530 UT (00:30 EST) when as many as 200 shooting stars per hour might be seen. The peak occurs just a few days after the phase of the Moon is new. That means the sky will be dark, and viewing conditions should be excellent. No matter where you live, the best time to watch will be between midnight and 6 am local time on the morning of January 4.

Despite the fact that the Quadrantids make up one of the year's most intense meteor showers, they are also among the least observed. Why? One reason is the weather. The shower's radiant is located high in the Northern sky, so the Quadrantids are visible mainly to observers in the Northern hemisphere where the weather is cold and often stormy in January. After a series of summertime and autumnal meteor showers like the Perseids, Leonids, and Geminids, many sky watchers have seen plenty of meteors by the time the Quadrantids arrive. Who can blame them for lingering by the comforts of the hearth while the shower rages outside?

The situation is almost certainly exacerbated by the brevity of the shower's peak, which usually lasts just a few hours. Even dedicated meteor observers are likely to miss such a sharp maximum simply because they live at the wrong longitude. In his classic book Meteor Astronomy, Prof. A.C.B. Lovell lamented that "useful counts of the Quadrantid rate were made  in 24 Januaries out of a possible 68 between 1860 and 1927. ... The maximum rate during this period appears to have occurred in 1932 (80 per hour) although the results are influenced by unfavorable weather."