Orionids peak on the night of 21-22 Oct

This note is verified. The reel was posted at 6:18 pm IST on 20 October 2026. The Orionids are the meteor shower that comes from dust left by Halley's Comet, 1P/Halley. Each October the Earth passes through that trail, and the bits burn in the atmosphere. That is the caption's account, and it matches NASA's Orionids page and the October 2026 What's Up note, which both tie the shower to debris from Halley's Comet.

NASA's Orionids page and the American Meteor Society calendar put the peak on the night of 21-22 October 2026. The International Meteor Organization's 2026 calendar puts the maximum on 21 October. Those are two ways of naming the same peak: a maximum dated 21 October, and a peak night that runs into the morning of 22 October. NASA, the American Meteor Society and BBC Weather all keep the shower active until 7 November. BBC Weather says the display is at its best in the early hours of 22 October. Its clock times, including a moonset around 3:00 BST, are for UK skies, not for India.

Under a dark sky, a typical peak is about 10 to 20 meteors an hour. NASA's page gives that range, and the American Meteor Society describes 10 to 20 shower members in a normal year. The caption uses the same range and calls it typical. This year a bright waxing gibbous Moon is up for much of the night. NASA's What's Up note says that moonlight can hide the fainter meteors, and that the better chance is in the hours before dawn, after the Moon has set. The American Meteor Society says the Moon on the peak night is a bright waxing gibbous and that it will interfere while it is above the horizon.

For India, moonset on that night is not one time for the whole country. The times computed for this reel, and labelled as NP-computed, are 2:23 am IST in Delhi, 2:49 am IST in Mumbai, 2:23 am IST in Chennai and 1:42 am IST in Kolkata. The useful window in the caption is from around moonset until dawn. City lights, and a difference of a few minutes between neighbourhoods, move that window.

The caption's watching notes, which line up with NASA's What's Up and with BBC Weather's general advice, are these. Go somewhere dark, away from city light. Look roughly east or south-east. Meteors can still appear in any part of the sky, so the direction is a guide, not a boundary. A telescope or binoculars are not required. Give the eyes about 20 minutes in the dark. Cloud or pollution means fewer meteors will show. None of the sources promises a number for a particular street.

The picture on this page is a frame from the reel. The caption says the visual is a NASA/JPL animation, an artist's concept, and not a real photograph. The credit line here is the fuller form of that note: a NASA/JPL-Caltech animation, an artist's concept, not a photograph of the shower.