Caoimhín's Content

Today, we are yet again looking to the October sky, and we’re going to look at a couple of the minor events that we skipped over in the previous piece.

I mentioned last time that the Moon is having a reasonable conjunction with Saturn early in the month, and we’re coming forward to the Full Moon on the 7th, which we know is a Supermoon this year. This year the Full Moon is on the 7th and that happens to be the almost the peak night of the Draconid meteor shower. The radiant of the meteor shower is in the constellation Draco, so it’s way back in the north. If we take a look at the Plough pointing up at the North Star, we’ve got Cassiopeia almost above North Star. The Draconids and the constellation Draco are of on western side early in the night. It’s more or less on the opposite side of the North Star to Capella and Auriga if you’re looking into the north.

The Draconids of course radiate from the constellations Draco, and they are peaking on the 8th of October. I assumed that this would be just after midnight on the 7th, but we can double check with the Zenith Hourly Rates given in Stellarium. The Draconids can generate some pretty high numbers, with hundreds and hundreds of meteors during outbursts, but this often isn’t the case. Even though the Draconids can peak up to hundreds and hundreds of meteors per hour, we’re more likely to get a lower amount of meteors. Through to the 8th, just after midnight, Stellarium is suggesting 19 or so per hour. I’m going stick with 19 as the rate, even though our range is from 19 to 665 meteors and hour. We are more likely to get something around the 19 rather than the 665, though outbursts can raise the number of meteors, they are brief if they occur. That number does go up to the 20s just as the Sun rises for the 8th. Going all the way forward to the 9th and the rate only drops. It looks like about 20 is the most we’re going to get, but that peak of 20 seems to be coming just as the Sun is rising here in Ireland.

We’re going to have realistically up around the the 20 ;per hour or potentially even a little bit less. Stellarium gives a local hourly rate of just 7. It’s 7 to 259, but those high outbursts are tough to catch if they occur. The reduction is partly due to our view from the city, but also due to the almost Full Moon. It’s not quite full, it’s down to 95.8% full, but that’s still plenty. That 5%, or less than 5%, away from full doesn’t make much difference. It makes a visible difference to how much of the Moon we can see but the Moon is still going to be incredibly bright. All in all, it’s possibly not the best year for the Draconids. We would get a better local rate out in the countryside because, of course, that view makes every meteor shower and indeed everything that we’re going to see in the sky just a little bit better. Under dark skies if we grab our Draconids again, the local hourly rate is 18 instead of 7. Again, around that 18 or 20 is likely to be the best hourly rate we’ll get. We’re probably not going to see much more outside of potential outbursts, and we could potentially see quite less.

The Draconids are happening, but they’re peaking very close to the Full Moon and as such, they’re not going to be the best meteor shower. If we wait a week or so, the Moon will be out of the way here. There are plenty of meteors radiants during october, but the stars are crowding the sky without any light pollution. Just so we can concentrate on the meteor showers, we will ignore the stars, which Stellarium can hide for us. There’s a bunch of other meteor showers popping up this month. The antihelion point, of course, is always there. The antihelion point is part of the background rate, but the rest come and go. The Southern Taurids for example are peaking on the 10th. They have a long span, from september to december, but a very low contribution of just a handful of meteors at the peak. If we come back to the 10th day of the 10th month, again we’re very close to the Full Moon, and even without it even the possible maximum is just five instead of hundreds. If we go to the October Delta Aurigids, these are coming from the constellation of Auriga, and peaking on the 11th. It will contribute maybe one or two an hour, and still very close to the Full Moon.

So even though these meteor showers and the Draconids are going on at around the same time, we still won’t see that many. Thanks to the length of their activity span, the time range of these meteor showers, they do overlap a bit and their peaks are reasonably close together. There isn’t a certain identified parent body for the October Delta Aurigids, but there is for most of the other showers here. The parent body for the Southern Taurids is Comet 2P/Encke, a periodical comet and the second periodical comet discovered to be periodical. The Draconid radiant has vanished from the sky by the 11th, because we have gone past their range, the Draconid date range is actually very narrow, just the 5th to the 10th. As such they’re really not going to be contributing as much once we get past the 10th, so they don’t overlap as much with the later showers. Their parent body is known as well, Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, the 21st periodical comet as you may expect.

We’re going to move right forward towards the end of the month which brings new meteor shower radiants after popping up. The Leonis Minorids will be radiating from the constellation of Leo Minor. They’re not minor meteor showers in the constellation of Leo, they’re in the constellation of Leo Minor, the Little Lion rather than the more regular Leo. Leo Minor is just under the heel of the Bear Ursa Major, above the constellation of Leo the Lion. We don’t really call Leo “Leo Major” the way we call Ursa Major “Major” and Ursa Minor “Minor”, but we do have a Leo Minor. They’re peaking much closer to the end of the month, but also not contributing a lot. They do have a reasonable span, from mid-October into November, but usually only contributes two or so meteors an hour, rarely 10 or more. The Eta Geminids do pretty much the same thing, not contributing a lot and peaking close to the end of the month. Also popping up at the end of the month are the Orionids. The Orionids can be quite a good shower, occasionally up to 50 meteors and hour, but more commonly around 20. Although we’re not getting huge amounts, they’re peaking on the 21st, so the Moon will be out of the way. They seem best early in the morning of the 21st, coming back a little bit drops the rate to 18, and moving forward it drops down to 14.

Just after midnight, just as we go into the 21st seems to be the best time for us in Ireland to see the Orionids. We may not see the maximum rate locally, because the Orionids aren’t radiating from particularly high up in the sky and there is still a limiting magnitude. We still have the atmosphere to deal with, even if we don’t have any excess lights to deal with. We’re assuming the countryside with no light pollution, and more importantly for this month, we don’t have to worry about the Moon. The Moon isn’t going to interfere with the Orionids as it does for the Draconids. The parent body of the Orionids is Halley’s Comet, the first periodical comet discovered, officially 1P/Halley. Halley’s Comet won’t be coming back around until 2061 and after that we should have a stronger batch of Orionids. The Orionids, and all of these meteor showers, they’re all created by objects moving through the solar system, leaving behind a trail of dust, but when that object has recently passed by, when that trail of dust is sort of refilled by the passing of the parent body, that’s when we’re going to get more of meteors coming through.

So the Orionids will be happening, coming up at the end of the month, and even though they’re not showing the crazy big range that the Draconids shows, they are reliable. The Orionids are quite likely to get up to the 18 to 20 Zenith hourly rate, whereas the Draconids, even though they could hypothetically get up into the hundreds, they’re much more likely to give us, 20, less with the light of the Moon. The Orionids are just a little bit more reliable at the end of the month. We do have many meteor showers coming up, but the Orionids are really the ones to look for and I will revisit the Orionids at the end of the month. We might also take a look at their parent body, Halley’s Comet, one of the most famous comets, possibly the most famous comet that has been discovered. Halley’s Comet, or 1P/Halley and Encke’s Comet, 2P/Encke, are both named after the first people to calculate their orbits and predict their returns, rather than the first person to actually see them or realize that they were comets. We’ll take a look at 1P/Halley when we get a little into the future. Right at the end of the month, the radiant of the Northern Taurids have popped up but they’re not actually peaking until November. Wven though they run from October to December, we’re not actually expecting any of them here in late October.

Moving through time, different meteor showers pop up and go away as we come back towards September. The Orionids go away, and the Moon returns to the evening sky. It is unfortunate that around the peak of the Draconids is also around the night of the Full Moon. We have the Draconids peaking just a couple of days after the Full Moon on the 8th of October. We’ve got our Delta Aurigids and our Southern Taurids, all happening around these dates, but with the glow of the Moon they will be a little washed out. Even if you’re in the countryside that’s not something you’ll be able to escape, the Moon is going to be there. Even though we have more meteor showers peaking early in the month, it’s at the end of the month when the Moon is out of the way, that’s when the Orionids, the more productive meteor shower, that’s when that’s going to kick off.

We do have those, all of those coming up, and as mentioned last time, the Moon is continuing its path along almost the ecliptic, passing very close to Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus as well. The Moon gets quite close to Uranus in the sky as it occults the Pleiades. All of these meteor showers that have their radiants along the ecliptic, the Moon will be passing pretty close to them. The Moon passes the radiant to the Taurids and gets close to the radiant of the Eta Geminids, but once the Moon is out of the sky, we don’t have to worry about it. Most of these meteor showers will be continuing for several days at least, but of course they are only peaking on their peak day. The 21st really is the day that I’ve got to recommend, the 21st of October for the Orionids. You can go out on the 7th or the 8th for the Draconids as well, but it is the Orionids that I would recommend.

I do hope you get a chance to see those meteor showers, if you do then I hope you like them. Now that you’ve read this piece, I hope you like it too. If you did enjoy this piece then please do like it. If you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.