{"id":661230,"date":"2026-10-21T08:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T08:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661230\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T08:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T08:38:17","slug":"the-sky-today-on-wednesday-october-21-catch-early-morning-orionids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661230\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Wednesday, October 21: Catch early-morning Orionids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe Orionid meteor shower peaks today, offering a good chunk of Moon-free observing in the hours before dawn.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"956\" height=\"711\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792571897_722_ASY-SM1026_04.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"The sky during the peak of the Orionid meteor shower on October 21, 2026, at 5 AM, looking south\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tWait until after the Moon sets on the morning of Oct. 21 to catch the Orionids. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/the-sky-this-week\/the-sky-this-week-from-october-16-to-23-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">October 20: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-tuesday-october-20-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lovely spiral NGC 7331<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The Orionid meteor shower peaks this morning \u2014 the perfect time to watch for shooting stars, as Earth turns into the meteoroid stream of dusty debris responsible for the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best time to do some meteor-watching is between 2 A.M. local daylight time and dawn, as the radiant in Orion rises higher and the Moon has already set. Around 5 A.M., the Hunter stands above the southern horizon, his famous three-star Belt easy to find. Meteors in the Orionid shower appear to originate just to the upper left\u00a0 (northeast) of Betelgeuse, the bright red giant that serves as one of Orion\u2019s shoulders. Once you\u2019ve found this star, cast your gaze some 40\u00b0 to 60\u00b0 to either side, away from it \u2014 that\u2019s where you\u2019ll see meteors with the longest trains.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year\u2019s shower is expected to produce some 15\u201318 meteors per hour in the early-morning hours. And if you aren\u2019t able to get out in the morning, you can try again late tonight after Orion rises and overnight into tomorrow morning. Even though the peak has passed, meteor rates will still be higher than the sporadic six or so per hour that are visible even without any showers active.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Sunrise: 7:17 A.M. <br \/>Sunset: 6:11 P.M. <br \/>Moonrise: 3:56 P.M. <br \/>Moonset: 2:15 A.M. <br \/>Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (81%) <br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The Orionid meteor shower peaks today, offering a good chunk of Moon-free observing in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-661230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}