Didn't see any mention of them here. Wondering if and when they'll be best viewed in So. Cal.?

thanks.

The peak comes tonight during the predawn hours.

The Astronomy.com website reports that the best viewing times for Southern California is between 0200PDT to 0600PDT with the peak around 0300PDT.

A dark sky would be highly desirable. In other words, Away from the city or metropolitan lights, like for Orange County observers, the Ortega Highway stretch from San Juan Fire Station to El Cariso village is good. Personally I like San Juan Fire Station, just off the side of the road that spurs off to Hot Springs Canyon road.

Check out the location on Bing.com/maps. : http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=Z9LH8

Clear Skies   --- Silveradogold

Thanks guys.

Hello,.,,Astronomy mag. says the peak is in the pre dawn hours of the 21st,.,I take this to mean wed. morn.,.,not thur. morn.,.,am I wrong in this thinking?.,.,O+O

Dave,

you are correct. That would also mean a few hours after the 11:00 news on Tuesday night. If you don't go to sleep before midnight, using the days as a reference can sometimes be confusing. Most people refer to when they go to sleep to be "night time" and don't even realise that they are already into the morning hours of the following day.

Indeed, Starwolf is correct.  According to my calculations the Orionid meteor shower should have peaked globally on 2009 OCT 21 at 08:32 UT.  However, for any individual location the best viewing would have been between local midnight (midway between sunset and sunrise) and the beginning of morning twilight nearest to the global peak.  So for North Americans that would have been early Wednesday morning, i.e. after Tuesday evening.

Below are my predicted global peaks in Universal Time for major meteor showers over the next year.  Add 365.256363 days (a sidereal year) for each succeeding year.

2009 NOV 17 at 13:38 UT – Leonids

2009 DEC 14 at 02:46 UT – Geminids

2010 JAN 03 at 16:57 UT – Quadrantids

2010 APR 22 at 13:00 UT – Lyrids

2010 MAY 06 at 05:21 UT – Eta Aquarids

2010 AUG 13 at 00:49 UT – Perseids

2010 OCT 21 at 14:42 UT – Orionids

Curt, 

The RASC Observer's Handbook listed the peak time at 10:00 UT, not all that much different than your prediction, given the fact that the Orionids have a broad peak. 

Thanks for posting the data on the other showers.

Dave Mitsky

You’re welcome, Dave.  Indeed, the breadth of the peak is really too great to justify one-minute accuracy.  But the meteor subroutine I developed helps my homemade software best determine on what date to place notice of a shower within my monthly astronomical calendars:  http://www.curtrenz.com/astronomical

Below are my predictions for the global peaks of major meteor showers through 2018.  The list includes information on the illumination of the Moon at the time of each peak.

That's even better, Curt. 

I saw a few nice Orionids on Tuesday morning (the brightest one cut through the Belt of Orion) but wasn't able to join some fellow ASH members at a dark site on Tuesday night.  Despite the iffy forecasts, they had clear skies the entire night and saw many Orionids.

By the way, the Orionid shower is still active.

http://www.spaceweather.com/ (October 25)

An Orionid meteor shower gallery can be seen here.

Dave Mitsky

I saw a single meteor on Monday night sometime after 11:00PM EST. It was very bright travelling ESE to WNW. That was alittle over 24 hours before the scheduled "peak". It was white-gold in color and left a streak about 8° to 10° long visible for about 1 second.

That was it. So much for 30 per hour.

Starwolf:

I saw a single meteor on Monday night sometime after 11:00PM EST. It was very bright travelling ESE to WNW. That was alittle over 24 hours before the scheduled "peak". It was white-gold in color and left a streak about 8° to 10° long visible for about 1 second.

That was it. So much for 30 per hour.

Thanks for your observation report, Starwolf.  Did you really mean EST?  Pennsylvania is still on EDT until this coming Sunday morning.  11 pm EDT is 10 pm EST.  As I noted in my second post in this thread, the best viewing comes between local midnight and the beginning of morning twilight.  That’s because during the morning hours an observer is on the side of the Earth that is plowing into the meteor stream. Before that the hourly meteor rate is greatly diminished.

Some fellow CAS members and I saw a number of Orionids on Monday morning, October 26, while observing from a local dark site.

Dave Mitsky