Auburn lecturer shares information about October meteor shower

Melissa Halford, a lecturer in Auburn University’s department of physics, shares information about how to best view this year’s meteor shower from Halley’s Comet.

Why will we be having a meteor shower Oct. 21-22?

Meteor showers happen—there are several of them that are reasonably observable every year—these are from trails left behind comets. When comets pass through the solar system, they live little pieces of themselves behind and when the Earth, in its orbit, passes through that trail, the pebble sized things, or smaller than that, burn up in our atmosphere, and we see a bright flash of light which is a meteor. This one in particular is from Halley’s Comet which is a pretty well-known one that was very brightly visible in the sky back in the 1980s. Every year we pass through its trail in October. The time when we pass through the densest part of the material, when we’re seeing the most stuff burn up in the atmosphere, this year is Oct. 21-22, so that’s when it’s best to view.

This meteor shower is an annual occurrence, but we won’t actually see Halley’s Comet again for many years. Is that right?

That’s right. Each time the comet passes through it leaves some material behind, but it takes about 76 years to complete an orbit, so we won’t see it again for another few decades, the comet itself.

What’s the best viewing location for the meteor shower?

For viewing a meteor shower, the best thing to do is to try and find a reasonably dark site, so if you can get a little bit away from lights that’s always helpful. People always ask, “What kind of telescope should I use?” The answer for a meteor shower is you don’t want to use a telescope, actually. You want to see the largest fraction of the sky you can because meteors appear to come from one particular location, which is called the radiant, but you can see them over a wide area in the sky. What you want to do is find something comfortable where you can either sit down and look up or lay back and look up into the sky. In order to do that, you’d also want to be away from any large obstructions like buildings or trees so you can have a wide view of the sky. Because of the direction the Earth travels in its orbit, late in the evening to very early morning is the best time. Unfortunately with the Orionids this year, the moon will be up, and compared to other things in the sky, the moon is quite bright and not ideal for observing, so it will be up in the early morning this year. The Orionids are called the Orionids because the radiant—the point where all the meteors look like they’re coming from—is in the constellation Orion. Orion is not up until early morning at this time of year.