[Chaos-l] Spectacular Orionid

[Jon Stewart-Taylor]

Hi all.  At just after 3:30 am EDT tonight (10/21) i saw a spectacular  
Orionid meteor. It appeared in the constellation Orion, so it was  
close to the radient.  This means it was fairly short,, maybe 5 or 8  
degrees long.  It was very bright, though, brighter than Jupiter, and  
both left a trail and threw off sparks.  After the meteor itself was  
gone, there was a bright afterglow left on the sky, perhaps as much as  
3 degrees long, glowing at maybe mag 2.5.  Over the next 10 minutes,  
the glow elongated and distorted until it was vaguely "C"-shaped, and  
covered an area about 5 degrees in diameter.  During this period it  
drifted from its original position just east of Orion's shield to the  
WNW.  It finally faded to invisibility about 1 degree from the Hyades.

Best meteor i've seen since the '99 Leonids!

J.

PS: in 2.5 hours from 2:15 to 4:45, i logged 25 Orionids and 8  
sporadics.
-- 
Jon Stewart-Taylor:  joncst at earthlink.net
Chapel Hill Astronomy: http://www.rtpnet.org/chaos
Cape Fear Astronomy: http://www.capefearastro.org/