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Leonids Meteor Shower 2026 — Watch From the Darkest Cameras on Earth
Peak night November 17–18, under a thin crescent moon that sets early. Dark-sky cameras across Alaska, Iceland and the desert Southwest — plus the Beaver Supermoon on Nov 24. Free, no signup.
The Leonid meteor shower peaks on the night of November 17–18, 2026, and this year the Moon cooperates: a thin crescent sets early, leaving the deep night properly dark. From a dark site expect roughly 10–15 meteors an hour — not a storm year, but the Leonids are the fastest meteors of the calendar, and their bright ones leave trains. This page gathers the darkest public cameras in the WorldEye directory for the peak: 30 within 60 km of Fairbanks, 69 around Reykjavík, and the desert walls of Flagstaff, Moab and Joshua Tree below. Every feed is free to watch, no signup.
The honest limits, stated before the walls: no camera can be promised a meteor. Webcam sensors catch the bright end of a shower — the fireballs — and miss the faint majority your eyes would catch from the same ground. Cloud decides more than geography does. What a page like this actually sells is a circuit: dark places spread across eleven time zones, so that when it is cloudy or dawn where you are, it is past midnight and clear somewhere below. Rotate the walls; the shower is patient even when the weather is not.
A week later the same page changes instruments. On November 24 the Beaver Supermoon rises — the first of a run of consecutive supermoons — and the right camera for a moonrise is not a desert feed but a skyline. The New York wall closes the page for exactly that: the full moon coming up over the city, watched from the city's own cameras.
Peak night is November 17–18; the supermoon follows on November 24. Both are in the diary — the walls stay live between them.
Fairbanks, Alaska — the long northern night
30 cameras within 60 km of Fairbanks — Interior Alaska's highway and town cameras under some of the longest November nights on Earth. This wall doubles as aurora country: at Fairbanks' latitude, a clear peak night can serve both shows at once.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for Fairbanks.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
Reykjavík, Iceland — the Atlantic's dark edge
69 cameras within 30 km of Reykjavík — Iceland's capital-region road and coastal network, at the edge of a country whose interior is among Europe's darkest. The last wall to reach midnight, and often the clearest when the continent is clouded.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for Reykjavík.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
Flagstaff, Arizona — the first Dark Sky City
22 cameras within 40 km of Flagstaff — the high-elevation city that invented dark-sky lighting law, at 2,100 metres under desert air. Northern Arizona is the Leonids' classic American watching ground.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for Flagstaff.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
Moab, Utah — canyon country darkness
21 cameras within 50 km of Moab — the US-191 corridor through red-rock country between two dark-sky national parks. A thin wall, because the country is empty; that emptiness is the point.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for Moab.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
Joshua Tree, California — the Mojave sky
11 cameras within 40 km of Joshua Tree — the Mojave Desert's gateway towns. The smallest wall on this page, stated plainly: desert-edge feeds whose night frames run dark once you are past the town lights.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for Joshua Tree.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
New York City — the Beaver Supermoon moonrise, Nov 24
279 cameras within 25 km of the city centre — included for the opposite kind of night watching. A week after the Leonid peak, the Beaver Supermoon rises over this skyline on November 24; for a moonrise, a bright city wall is not the compromise, it is the instrument.
Loading live cameras…Fetching the live index for New York City.
Every card is the camera's real live feed: snapshot cards refresh about every 15 seconds, stream cards play live in the grid (a few at a time, the same budget the map tiles use) and in full when you open a camera. Feeds are provided by their operators and public sources; a camera whose stream has gone off air shows as unavailable rather than playing a recording.
Two nights, two kinds of sky
Nov 17–18: the Leonid peak
The Earth crosses the debris stream of comet Tempel–Tuttle. Rates build after local midnight and peak before dawn; the thin crescent moon sets early and leaves the sky to the shower. Fast meteors, occasional fireballs, lingering trains.
Nov 24: the Beaver Supermoon
A full moon at close approach, rising at sunset. The camera craft is different: you want the moon low, over a skyline or a ridge, in its first half hour — which is what the New York wall at the foot of this page is for.
Meteor or satellite?
On a dark feed you will see both. A meteor is gone in under a second, often brightening as it crosses. A satellite or the space station crosses steadily, over minutes, at constant brightness. Blinking means aircraft. All three are worth watching; only the first counts.
Why cameras, not just eyes?
Because the weather is local and the shower is global. A circuit of dark cameras across longitudes turns one cloudy night at home into a planet-wide watch — the same trick the aurora hunters use, pointed at a different sky.
How to watch peak night on the walls
- 1Start after your local midnight if you can — rates climb as your side of Earth turns into the stream; the walls let you cheat by starting where it is already late.
- 2Open the wall whose local time is deepest into the night and check its frame honestly: black sky, visible stars, ground as dim shapes. A lit parking lot is not a dark-sky feed.
- 3Keep three to five feeds across different longitudes in rotation, so one bank of cloud never ends your night.
- 4Watch for the fast signature — a streak, gone. Log the slow bright points as satellites and enjoy them separately.
- 5Come back on November 24 at sunset for the other show: the Beaver Supermoon rising over the New York wall.
Leonids 2026 — FAQ
When do the Leonids peak in 2026?+
Can these cameras actually show the meteors?+
Why are most of these cameras road and landscape cameras?+
What is the Beaver Supermoon?+
When should I watch, my time?+
Are these cameras free to watch?+
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