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Get ready for what has the possibility of being a great light show. The annual Orionid meteor shower is ready for sky watchers and will be at its peak tonight. When I say tonight - the actual best viewing time is from 1a.m to 4a.m so it will actually be officially Sunday morning. Brew some coffee to stay up late or get a nap for an early a.m. rise as the peak of the shower happens after midnight. The best time to see it will be between 1:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. Sunday morning.

Meteor Shower Light Show: Orionid Meteor Shower Late Tonight!

What to do? Get comfortable and get to a location that is out and away from the city lights and other sources of light pollution. Meteor watching is best done from a location with a broad view of the sky. A blanket or lounge chair allows the sky watcher to comfortably lie back and look up. Seasoned observers advise wearing much warmer clothing than you think you might need. Telescopes and binoculars are not needed.


Lots off people will want to bundle up. Observing the Orionids means being outside during the chilliest part of the night, so dress appropriately. "Meteor watching is one of the coldest activities known to man," Alan MacRobert, a senior editor at Sky and Telescope magazine told National Geographic. "So bundle up."

The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but will all seem to emanate from a single point, called the radiant. The radiant for the Orionids, in the constellation Orion, will be high in the southern sky in the predawn hours.


"They are pretty much an Old Faithful type of reliable shower," "We have a window of moonless sky, so this is one for which regular meteor observers are going to be out," MacRobert said. Either way, cloudless skies and dark conditions away from streetlights and house lights would make for an enjoyable show anytime between 1:30 a.m. and daybreak Sunday


National Geographic notes that though they put on a good show, the comet remnants are surprisingly tiny. "Most of the things that make a nice, good visual meteor are the size of a grain of sand," said Scott Sandford, an astrophysicist at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California.

"This is a wide stream, so it will take a couple of days to completely pass through," Sandford added. People all over Earth will have a chance to see the meteors, he noted. "Meteors are hitting all the time," Sandford said, "even in daylight, although it's too bright to see them."