The Orionids, 21-22 October 2026 — where to look
A short one, for the night itself. Every hour and direction below was computed before it was written.
Tomorrow night the Earth crosses the dust of Halley's Comet. The Orionids peak on the night of 21 October into the 22nd — and the shower is active from 2 October to 7 November, so the nights either side of the peak are nearly as good. If tomorrow is clouded, Thursday will do.
Where they come from. The radiant sits just above Orion's shoulder star, Betelgeuse. Do not stare at Orion. The meteors appear across the whole sky, and the long streaks are the ones well away from the radiant. Lie back if you can, cover as much sky as possible, and give your eyes twenty minutes to darken.
The moon is the problem this year. It is a waxing gibbous, nearly full by the 25th, so it washes out the faint ones and it stands through the middle of the night. The honest window is after moonset, before dawn.
Two worked examples, both computed for the night:
- Tehran — the moon sets about 01:40; the sky stays fully dark until about 05:30. Orion is already up at dusk, and the giant stands due south at 22:30, sixty-two degrees high.
- Cape Town — the moon sets about 03:20; dark until about 05:30. The radiant does not rise until about a quarter to midnight, then climbs through the small hours and stands forty degrees up in the north by the end of the dark. Seen from below the equator, Orion is a giant inverted: his feet in the sky, his shoulder low.
These burn at about sixty-six kilometres a second, the fastest of the year's big showers, and they are bright enough that city light does not always kill them. From a dark sky, ten to twenty an hour. From a city, a few — and worth the few.
The dust is Halley's. That comet will not return until 2061. This is what it left behind, falling over the world every October, whether or not anyone looks up.
Aelthir
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