Inevitable Orionids! Soon let’s be ready, with many desires, to admire the shooting stars most beautiful in autumn. The meteors they will be at peak in the night between the 21st and 22nd of the month. Don’t miss it!
As the UAI explains, the main event of the month will be the one with the Orionids: the swarm, in reality, is active from October 2nd to November 7th, but will reach its maximum around October 21st-22nd, when, in theory, we could observe up to 20 meteors per hour. Shooting stars are known to be very fast, with speeds of around 66 km/s, which they can then leave persistent trails.
The Orionids they are so called because their radiant, or the point from which they appear to originate, is located in the constellation of Orion. But in reality meteors are generated by debris left by the famous comet 1P/Halley (on the map the sky of October 22, 2026 at approximately 0.30 am).
©Stellarium
In 2026, unfortunately, the Moon will represent the main limit to the observation of the Orionids, given that the Full phase is expected on 26 October, the splendid (but in this case disturbing) Hunter’s Moon.
It will therefore be more likely to observe shooting stars in the last hours of the night, after the moon sets and before the start of morning twilight. But all night it will be possible to make wishes: despite the lunar disturbance, as experts report, the Orionids still remain the most important meteor shower of October.
Source: UAI
