Halley’s Comet makes a return to our skies this month – but not quite in the form you’d expect.

If you want to see the real thing, you’ll have to hang on until 2061. And don’t hold your breath. Its appearance is predicted to be even more disappointing than that of 1985-86.

It’s actually the debris shed by Halley that we’ll encounter this October. Comets are dirty creatures; they leave a trail of cosmic dust behind themselves as they tramp around the Solar System. And on 21-22 October, Earth ploughs through remnants of Halley’s Comet as we orbit the Sun.

The particles from the comet stream into our atmosphere. But there’s no danger of any of them hitting us. They’re tiny: no bigger than granules of instant coffee. Travelling at high speeds, they burn up harmlessly at around 60km above the Earth’s surface. The result is a cosmic fireworks display: a meteor shower. The meteors come in on parallel paths, but distance makes them appear to emanate from one point in the sky (just as distant motorway lanes seem to converge).

These particular meteors have their ‘‘radiant’’ in Orion (marked on the chart). Although you can trace an Orionid back to this point, it’s worth looking out for them all over the sky.

You don’t need any special equipment to observe a meteor shower. In the case of the Orionids, go out after midnight on 21-22 October (when the Earth will be turned towards the shower), lie down on a steamer – and wrap up warmly. At best, you should see up to 25 shooting stars per hour. These are fast-moving meteors, and they often leave a persistent train of light behind them as they are incinerated.

But Mars is a better place to be this month if you’re a big comet fan. The Red Planet is due for a close encounter with a real comet on 19 October. Comet 2013A1 – discovered by British astronomer Rob McNaught from the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia – will sail past the planet at a distance of just 120,000 kilometres. We can expect some stunning images of the comet from the rovers on Mars’s surface, and from spacecraft in orbit.

NASA: Space in pictures Show all 12 1 /12 NASA: Space in pictures NASA: Space in pictures NASA A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa NASA: Space in pictures NASA The Barred Spiral Galaxy (NGC 6217) in the Ursa Minor constellation is pictured in Space NASA: Space in pictures NASA A team of astrophysicists has detected so-called gravitational waves – predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago – which are the first tremors of the Big Bang when time and space began about 13.7 billion years ago Rex NASA: Space in pictures NASA The barred spiral galaxy M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel. The Hubble photograph captures thousands of star clusters, hundreds of thousands of individual stars, and 'ghosts' of dead stars called supernova remnants NASA: Space in pictures NASA Acosmic creepy-crawly known as the Tarantula Nebula in infrared light NASA: Space in pictures NASA A spiral galaxy ESO 373-8 - together with at least seven of its galactic neighbours, this galaxy is a member of the NGC 2997 group NASA: Space in pictures NASA A massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744, according to NASA these are some of the faintest and youngest galaxies ever detected in space NASA: Space in pictures NASA A giant cloud of solar particles, a coronal mass ejection, explodes off the sun, lower right, captured by the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory NASA: Space in pictures NASA Current conditions of the quiet corona and upper transition region of the Sun NASA: Space in pictures NASA First color image of the Earth taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968 NASA: Space in pictures NASA Fog forming over the the US Great Lakes area and streaming southeast with the wind. A swirling mass of Arctic air moved south into the continental United States NASA: Space in pictures NASA Astronaut Mike Hopkins, Expedition 38 Flight Engineer, is shown in the second of two spacewalks designed to allow the crew to change out a faulty water pump on the exterior of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station

And talking of stunning images – next month, the Rosetta spacecraft will soft-land a probe on a comet. Currently in orbit around Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (better abbreviated to Comet C-G), Rosetta will place its Philae probe on the comet’s surface. Nothing so audacious has ever been attempted before, and the close-up photographs that Philae captures will transport us to a new world – literally.

What’s up

You may spot Mars low down in the south-west after sunset, but otherwise it’s all quiet on the bright planet front until 1am, when brilliant Jupiter rises in the north-east. During the last few days of October, early risers may catch the elusive planet Mercury low in the east before dawn. The innermost planet is putting on its best morning show of the year.

So it’s all eyes to the starry skies. If you’re in a dark place – maybe watching out for the Orionid meteors – take the chance to scan the Milky Way, arching high overhead. The gently glowing band of distant stars rises upwards from the constellation of Aquila (the Eagle) in the south, through the cross-shape of Cygnus (the Swan) and queen Cassiopeia almost overhead, before heading back downwards to the north-east, where it encompasses the hero Perseus and Auriga (the Charioteer), to end up in the celestial Bull (Taurus), with the Twins (Gemini) and the mighty hunter Orion.

And a couple of sky-sights for anyone who plans to be out of the country this month. On 8 October, there’s a total eclipse of the Moon that’s visible from countries all around the Pacific Ocean, including the United States and Canada on the east, and Australia, Indonesia, China and parts of Russia on the west. The western regions of Canada and the United States are also treated to a partial eclipse of the Sun on 23 October.

Diary

Full moon : 8 October 11.50am

Moon at last quarter : 15 October 8.12pm

Maximum of Orionid meteor shower : 21-22 October

New moon : 23 October 10.57pm

End of British Summer Time : 26 October 2.00am