Orionid Meteor Shower
On a dark, moonless night, the Orionids exhibit as many as 25 meteors per hour. These fast-moving meteors occasionally leave persistent trains. They sometimes produce bright fireballs, so watch for them to flame in the sky. If you trace these meteors backward, they seem to come from the Club of the famous constellation Orion the Hunter. You might know Orion’s bright, ruddy star Betelgeuse. The radiant is north of Betelgeuse.
2014 Orionid Meteor Shower
Late Late Monday night (technically early Tuesday morning)
Tuesday, October 21, 2014 | Hours before dawn: midnight to dawn in 20142014 presents a fine year for watching the Orionid meteor shower, because the slim waning crescent moon coming up shortly before sunrise won’t obtrude on this year’s shower. Find a dark sky, lie down on a reclining lawn chair in comfort and look up. Give yourself at least an hour of watching time for meteors tend to come in spurts, and are interspersed by lulls. Remember, also, that it takes about twenty minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark.
When is the best time to watch? As with most (but not all) meteor showers, the best time to watch the Orionid shower is between the hours of midnight and dawn. The Orionids don’t really begin to streak the nighttime sky until late evening, when the magnificent constellation Orion ascends over the eastern horizon.
About The Orionid
The Orionid is caused by pieces of debris left behind by Halley’s Comet. Every year around mid-October, the debris hits the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, which causes it to burn up and creates the meteor shower we see. The debris is moving really fast — roughly 148,000 mph — and burns up when it hits the atmosphere, causing the flash of light we see.Source: EarthSky
