The annual Orionid meteor shower occurs when debris from Comet Halley intercepts the Earth at a high velocity. This debris stream is somewhat diffuse, so we see activity for several days on either side of the peak.

This is a composite image of 450 meteors collected between sunset on October 17 and sunrise on October 24. Since the images were collected over many hours, the radiant of the shower is not in a fixed location. During this time of year there are many minor showers active in addition to the Orionids. The very long meteor to the right of center is not a shower member. It was witnessed at 5:58 AM MDT on October 20, and was traveling very slowly (total flight was about 20 seconds). This fireball is under investigation, and may have been a decaying rocket body.

Long string-like images are stars or planets captured as they traveled across the sky over many hours. The bright streak at the lower left is Venus, which provides a useful brightness reference. At magnitude -4, Venus is the same brightness as a fireball. The Moon has been digitally removed from the composite image, but is evident in some of the videos.

Interesting Fireballs

• 2007-10-18 01:04:47
• 2007-10-18 04:31:09
• 2007-10-22 04:44:09

Shower Meteor Frequency

This chart plots the total meteor activity over one week. The Orionids peaked on October 21, but a winter storm developed shortly after midnight, and very few meteors were captured.