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.