2022 Orionids Shower

The annual Orionid meteor shower occurs when debris from Comet Halley intercepts the Earth at a high velocity (66 km/s, or 150,000 mph). 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 206 meteors collected between sunset on October 19 and sunrise on October 23 (four nights). There was no interference from the Moon this year, and weather conditions were good.

Since the images were collected over many hours, the radiant of the shower is not in a fixed location. Long string-like images are stars or planets captured as they traveled across the sky over many hours.

During this time of year there are many minor showers active in addition to the Orionids, and these have not been removed from the composite. Over the time frame of the composite, the camera captured Andromedids, Epsilon Geminids, Leo Minorids, Southern Taurids, Northern Taurids, and numerous sporadics.

The very bright object above the horizon on the right side of the image is not the Moon. It is a -12 magnitude (about the same brightness as the full Moon) fireball, probably a Northern Taurid.