It was the 2006 Quadrantid shower that inspired me to write this book. It is not a famous shower, but it should be: it is one of the strongest showers of the year, offering up to 200 meteors per hour (190 in 1965) per observer at maximum, in competition with the August Perseids. (The rates quoted are called zenithal hourly rates, and assume the ideal circumstance of a single observer observing under a dark, moonless sky, limiting magnitude 6.5, while the radiant is at the zenith. Since the radiant is never at the zenith during dark hours, the actual numbers are a lot lower.)

Late in the evening of January 2, I took The Beagle, our little dog, for his evening walk. The sky was dark and cloudy, and the forecast was not good. Through small breaks in the cloud cover I looked for meteors coming from the north, from a point in space between the head of Draco and the top of the kite-shaped figure of Bootes. From this little spot in the sky, not far from the star 47 Bootis, would emanate one of the year's best meteor showers.

But not this year, and this is why so few people pay attention to “the Quads.” There are two reasons.