Noted astrophotographer and Astronomy contributor John Chumack sent us a cool video of the 2008 Orionid meteor shower ... this on the heels of a stunning Orionid image from magazine columnist Stephen James O’Meara. Both express a lot of enthusiasm for this year’s display.
Read John’s comments below, then watch the video on Astronomy.com. You can see O’Meara’s image and read his comments in “Orionid meteor image.”
An unbelievable year for the Orionid meteors. I’m blown away by the number of very bright (magnitude -4 or brighter) fireballs this year. Even with the Last Quarter Moon present and city lights, many meteors were still very visible here in my backyard in Dayton, Ohio.
Apparently we went through a major debris field from the tail of Halley’s Comet this year, and it showed with the number of bright meteors seen.
I counted several dozen bright fireballs, and my North East Sky Camera caught over 160 meteors over the 2 nights that the camera was on — October 21 and 22. They seem to increase towards morning between 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
With the exception of this one “movie” when Orion was rising low in the southeast, I captured several long-trajectory meteors over my house — it was what they call an “atmospheric skipper.” This happens a lot when the meteor shower radiant is on the horizon.
The movie is highly compressed but gets the point across. The show was fantastic!
This is definitely the best I’ve seen of the Orionids!
Thanks, John!