Stargazers and astronomy buffs are going to love the next week.
The Orionid Meteor Shower will peak Monday evening, with two comets: Lemmon, and SWAN, also visible in the early evening sky.
The new moon will keep skies dark, leading to excellent viewing - and the dry, cold air in place will lead to good seeing with less distortion in your view with a pair of binoculars.
Meteor showers get their names based on the constellation they appear to originate from. So, the Orionids come from the constellation Orion. They occur as the earth races through a trail of rock and dust produced by 1P/Halley's Comet.
The Orionids are best viewed from 2:00 AM - 6:00 AM. They rise in the eastern sky through the southeast and will be high in the southern sky by 6 AM.
You can expect to see 10-20 meteors per hour in dark locations. In some years the Earth passes through a thicker part of the debris trail and higher rates are seen - that's not expected this year.
To see the comets, you'll want to look to the northwestern sky - to see Comet Lemmon - and the southwestern sky to see Comet SWAN.
Both of these are best viewed with binoculars, or a telescope though they'll have some naked eye visibility too given the conditions this weekend.
If you head out...expect it to be cold.
The cloud forecast is as good as it gets. Dry air in place means mainly clear skies through the weekend into early next week for most of Colorado.
Some clouds Sunday night into Monday morning but otherwise not much to stop your views.
However - with the clear skies typically come cold night temperatures.
Saturday morning looks fairly mild with 409s on the plains.
Sunday morning many areas will hit freezing temperatures. It's likely to be even colder than those numbers above.
The patchy clouds Monday will lead to more mild conditions.
While the Orionids aren't the biggest meteor shower of the year — the clear skies and new moon should lead to much better viewing than normal. So...if you needed a weekend activity...bring a good, warm, coat.
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