The annual Orionid meteor shower peaks early Tuesday morning. Astronomers say the best viewing time is between midnight and an hour or two prior to sunrise. On Tuesday, sunrise occurs at 7:38 a.m.
At the peak, the forecast calls for as many as 10 to 15 Orionid meteors per hour.
Viewing tips:
- Get away from city lights
- Find a good spot to throw out a blanket or use a lawn chair
- Let your eyes adjust to the dark for at least 15-20 minutes
- Look up!
No particular part of the sky should be better than another for this show, so simply look up and you should be able to make a wish upon a shooting star.
The Orionids are made possible by very tiny leftover fragments from Halley's Comet, which last moved through our solar system in 1986. The fragments are only the size of a single grain of sand, and they enter the atmosphere and burn up at around 40 miles per second.