Orionid Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend – When and Where To Watch

• Orionid Meteor Shower
• Peak Times To Watch
• Where to Look in East Texas and Southwest Arkansas

This time of year is really the best time to watch a meteor shower, the nights are cool, the sky is pretty clear most nights and this weekend the Orionid Meteor Shower is peaking for 2023. 

The Orionid Meteor Shower is already underway, has been since September 26, and will continue through November 22. It's a long one for sure. However, the peak viewing will be this weekend, Friday and Saturday night, October 20 and 21. You should be able to see anywhere 10 - 20 meteors per hour. As a bonus, the moon will only be about 37% full, removing much of the light pollution for the Haley's Comet drippings to rain down upon our little blue planet.

The Keys to Successful Meteor Watching:

1. Get away from city lights as best you can, the darker the better.
2. Lay on your back with as much un-blocked sky overhead as possible.
3. The best time to watch this one is anytime after dark almost to dawn.
4. Time commitment, you should dedicate a good hour or more because the first 20-30 minutes your eyes are adjusting to the dark.
5. From our area of East Texas and Southwest Arkansas, look to the Southeastern sky, roughly in the direction of the Orion star cluster.
6. Here's the hardest one, put down the cell phone. When you look at the bright light of your phone your eyes will have to, you guessed it, re-adjust.

Nobody said it would be easy, just worth it.

Incidentally, Orion's shoulder is the red star Betelgeuse, (Beetlejuice?) ... three years ago scientists were reporting that it was dimming and a lot of them were expecting it to go supernova. As far as we know, it hasn't yet, or has it? How many years would it take the light from that massive explosion event to get here? 700 years. So, if we see it here today, it will have happened 700 years ago, around the Earth year 1323'ish. Mind blown.

Happy stargazing!

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