Orionids from the new site

Orionids: 49 meteors in 3.5 h · limiting mag. 6.4

Over the summer I found a better observing site: a gravel track by a lake, twenty minutes further from town, with no farm lights and a flat horizon to the east and south. The difference in sky quality was obvious on the first night. The Milky Way showed texture, not just a glow.

The Orionids were helped by a moon that had set before midnight. I counted from 01:00 to 04:30.

Count

Forty-nine Orionids and fourteen sporadics, limiting magnitude 6.4 most of the night, which is the best I have recorded. Several fast Orionids left trains, and one long grazer skimmed along the eastern horizon early on, the kind of meteor you only get when the radiant is low.