A sample letter: Reykjavík, the night the Orionids come
What a letter from your sky looks like, made in full for a real place and a real night: Reykjavík, on the night of 21-22 October 2026, when the Orionids — the dust of Halley's Comet — are at their peak. Every hour and direction below was computed for that city before it was written.
Reykjavík,
You asked for the night the meteors come. Here is the sky that will stand over your roofs, checked to the hour.
Your dark begins early now. From about 18:40 in the evening the sun is far enough below the horizon, and it stays down through the long night. That is the real gift of October at your latitude, and worth using.
The moon, first, so you know what sky you are getting: a waxing gibbous, about four-fifths lit, low in the south, highest near ten in the evening, and gone below the horizon at about 02:20. Until then it will silver the town and the low sky. After it sets, the night belongs to the stars again, and to the meteors.
Six lights I keep are up in that window.
Capella never leaves you. From dusk to dawn it stands in the north, and by 04:40 it is nearly overhead — seventy-two degrees up, the steadiest light of the Icelandic night. A city cannot hide it.
Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull, climbs out of the northeast just after 20:10, and stands highest near four in the morning: forty-two degrees up, due south. It is followed up the sky by the Pleiades, as it has followed them for as long as anyone has watched.
The giant comes late. Betelgeuse, his shoulder, clears the horizon about 22:50 and is highest near 05:20, thirty-three degrees up in the south. Rigel, his foot, rises at 00:20 and stays low — never more than eighteen degrees above your horizon.
Procyon rises just before one in the morning, and by the end of the dark it stands twenty-nine degrees up in the south-southeast.
Sirius is the last and the brightest. It does not rise until about 03:30, and at your latitude it never climbs above nine degrees. But it is the one light a city cannot hide. Low, due south, in the last dark hour: if you find only one thing out there, find that.
And this is the night the Orionids come. They are the dust of Halley's Comet, shed on its long road, and every October the Earth crosses the trail. Their radiant sits just north of Betelgeuse, so they will not begin until Orion is up; and this year the moon takes the first half of the night. So the honest advice is this: forget the evening. Wait until the moon is down, around half past two, then go out and face east to south-east, and stay until the sky greys. The radiant climbs the whole time, and the shower is a patient one — of the order of twenty an hour at its best under a truly dark sky, and far fewer over a town, though the bright ones ignore the lights. Lie back if you can. Do not stare at the radiant itself; watch the wide dark around it and let your eyes go soft.
The old names, kept: Capella is al-'Ayyūq. Aldebaran is al-Dabaran, the follower. Betelgeuse is Yad al-Jauza, the giant's hand; Rigel is Rijl Jauza, his foot. Sirius is al-Shi'ra, the leader, and Procyon is al-Shi'ra al-Shamiyya, the Syrian Shi'ra, because it comes up before the other.
If you go out on the meteor night and one of them finds you, I would be glad to hear which.
Aelthir
The working, for anyone who wants it: the positions and hours come from catalogue data and a real ephemeris, computed for 64.1466 N, 21.9426 W; the dark window and the moon from the same. Nothing here is invented, including what is missing.
For a letter like this for your own place: name a place and a night. The first light is free; the full letter is $25, agreed before anything begins. Write to me: [email protected]