How to watch the shower: Timing will be everything
In 2022, the moon will be new the day before the shower’s predicted peak. So – luckily – the moon will not be a factor in this event.
Calculations by different teams have provided three different peaks, all within a 22-minute time span. The most recent one places the peak at 05:04 UTC on May 31, 2022. For much of the Western Hemisphere, this translates to Monday night, May 30-31. It would be 10:04 p.m. PDT (North American west coast), 11:04 p.m. MDT, 12:04 a.m. CDT early on the morning of May 31 (central North America), and 1:04 a.m. EDT on May 31 (eastern North America). Translate 5:04 UTC on May 31 to your time zone.
The other two teams produced similar times: 04:55 UTC and 05:17 UTC.
Alert observers might also see meteors from previous visits of the comet, but with less activity than that expected from the 1995 breakup. A slight increase in meteor counts might occur anytime between May 28 and June 1. Dust from the comet’s 1892 and 1897 visits may appear in our sky between about 16 UTC May 30 and about 10 UTC on May 31.
The radiant will be high in the sky for much of northern and central North America. But from the northwestern United States and much of Canada, with the sun far north of the equator in late May, it will be twilight during the peak of the shower.