Cosmos lovers get ready for a key shower....

[chiefMOJOrisin]

I wanted to inform all cosmos lovers (and non lovers alike) of a dope meteor shower this weekend. The Orionids shower peaks early sunday morning in the vicinity of the constellation Orion. Although the shower is active from Oct. 2- Nov. 7th, saturday and especially sunday will be proper meteorite viewing.

With a ZHR (zenith houry rate... number of meteorites visible in one hour) of 23, the Orionids are a very active shower. The shower takes place once a year at this time when the earth rotates into the leftovers from Halley's comet that float around our planet. As they hit our atmosphere they flame up and create what we see as shooting stars.

Although not as prevelent as the earlier Perseids, it is a very good shower for anyone who isn't too into astronomy and doens't want to wait for two hours to see a shooting star that might have been something else.

(all my information is based on my location.... CT,USA)

The constellation Orion rises around midnight, but at that time it will be hard to see due to the moon. The good times to look are 1:30 am-sunrise. The area where the meteors seem to come from is called the radiant. The Orionids radiant is close to Orions second brightest star, Betelgeuse....which is almost directly above Orions belt (the belt horizontal).

The best time will be around 5 a.m. It will still be dark and Orion is pretty much as high as it will go in the southern sky. At this time it will be easy to se 20-25 meteors an hour.

Obviously light pollution greatly hinders the chances for seeing anything. Find a dark place without any light. If thats not available, the least light as possible. Give yourself atleast 20 minutes outside before really observing. You need that time to adjust your eyes to the dark.

In addition to the shower, the planet Mars is very close to Orion now and is very bright. Also in the area is the Hyades cluster, the Orion nebula M42, and the Pleadies cluster M45.

Good stuff. Good viewing. The other night while I was viewing M42 with my binoculars, 2 meteors shot through my filed of vision...one right behind the other. It was awesome. Another time, not in this shower, I saw a meteor so big that I was able to see it tail of smoke and I actually heard it 'pop' when it finally exploded into nothing.

One small, insignificant event can be enough to create an astronomer for life. It did for me

[Digit]

thnx.