Next to the Geminids of December and the Perseids of August, the most reliable of the annual displays of "shooting stars" are the October Orionids.
The Orionid meteor shower normally lasts from about Oct. 16 to 26. A few swift Orionids may appear as early as the start of October and a lingering straggler or two as late as Nov. 7. The numbers seen by any one observer tend to reach a maximum of around 20 per hour when conditions are clear and dark and the shower radiant point near the Orion-Gemini border is well up in the sky.
