The Orionids are a relatively modest shower of meteors that take place every year from early October until early November. Meteor showers are expected on the nights of Tuesday and Wednesday, October 21-22. The meteor shower is known as the Orionid and at its best, the shower produces 15-20 meteors per hour.

The Orionids peak Tuesday and Wednesday mornings Oct. 21-22 next week when an observer might see 20-25 meteors an hour from a dark sky. They’ll appear to radiate above Betelgeuse in northern Orion.

The moon is almost new, so it will be thin and too near the sun to interfere with the shower. The shower will best be seen in the pre-dawn hours. At that time of day, the metors, believed to orginate in Halley’s comit will appear to be coming from the upper left of the constellation Orion. The Halley meteors enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high velocity, about 41 kilometers per hour, leaving streaks of ionized gas behind as they plunge onto the earth’s surface.

Those in the northern hemisphere should generally look to the southeastern sky, while those watching the shower from the southern hemisphere should look toward the northeast. The Oreonid meteor shower is just the start of a busy week for stargazers as Thursday brings a partial solar eclipse when the moon passes in front of the sun producing a crescent shaped sunset.

Watch it live through NASA’s live stream –

Time lapse video of a previous Orionid meteor shower –