Astroblog: Orionid Meteor Shower Morning October 23, 2011

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Orionid Meteor Shower Morning October 23, 2011

The location of the Orionid meteor radiant (yellow cross) as seen looking north-east at 3:00 am October 23 local daylight saving time from Adelaide. Similar views will be seen at equivalent local times elsewhere.

The Orionid Meteor shower peaks on October 22 at 13h UTC, (around midnight AEDST) in Australia, the radiant for the Orionids rises around 1 am on October 23, with the best meteor viewing being between 3:00 am and 4:00 am. You can expect to see roughly a meteor every 5 minutes or so under dark skies.

As the name suggest, the meteors will seem to originate just below Orion. Allow several minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness and be patent, it may take ages for a meteor to turn up, then you may see a few in a row.

You can use the Meteor Flux Estimator to predict the number of meteors you might see at your location. Choose 8 Orionids, and make sure the date is 2011 and you have DST on if you are in daylight saving zones.

Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.

Labels: Meteors, unaided eye observation

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 8:34 am

Comments:

Saw a great one south of Fort Worth this morning, just about sunrise. A very wide blue / gold streak with a trail that persisted 15-20 seconds or more. Best one I have seen in my life.

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:07 am

I saw it too! I thought it might be a part of that German satellite that is supposed to crash down this weekend but I guess not. It was beautiful.

# posted by

jmbnrh : 9:41 am

Seen from North Houston, just after 7am local time just before sunrise. Long arc of white light visible through clouds falling, followed by small explosion. Magnificent.

# posted by

Anonymous : 10:33 am

My Husband and I saw it also just after 7am this morning.. It was unbelieveable but I'm not sure if it was a meteor or the satellite.. It lasted about 10 seconds we were in awe and still can't believe what we saw!

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:03 pm

I saw it too, from Clear Lake City Texas, around 0710 on Sun, Oct 23, 2011. Amazing! It came from the N due SSW and it left a trail for about 5 seconds before it quickly dissipated. I would love to witness one of these again!

# posted by

david from Clear Lake : 10:49 pm