Geminid Meteor Shower: Peak Rates Up to 120/hr Dec 13-14

[davenn]

hi gang

we are now heading into the Geminid Meteor shower. This is the last significant shower
for the year with peak rates of up to 120 / hr are possible. The peak will be around the 13 - 14 December

If you don't know where the Gemini constellation is at your location, use a star map program to find out ...
eg Stellarium ... it free and its good !

A dark sky site and observing after midnite (your local time) will afford the best possible views

cheers
Dave

 

[Andy Resnick]

hi gang

we are now heading into the Geminid Meteor shower. This is the last significant shower
for the year with peak rates of up to 120 / hr are possible. The peak will be around the 13 - 14 December

If you don't know where the Gemini constellation is at your location, use a star map program to find out ...
eg Stellarium ... it free and its good !

A dark sky site and observing after midnite (your local time) will afford the best possible views

cheers
Dave

Thanks for the info- I think tomorrow (12/11) is going to be clear, not sure about further out.

Question for you (and others more experienced than I)- given that I will be using a 50mm lens (call it a 40 degree FOV), would it make more sense to aim directly at Gemini, or aim at (say) Orion?

 

[Chronos]

The Geminids will appear to be radially dispersed around a point slightly southwest of the star Castor, so anywhere near that vicinity should be good. The idea is to avoid sources of light polution in your field of view, so for time lapse photography, a somewhat southerly direction [towards Orion] is a good choice at my location.

 

[davenn]

managed to drag myself out of bed a couple of times during the early hours of this morning ( Monday)
Midnite - 1am -- 5 + another possible ( was faint) Geminids seen through thin to thick cloud coming and going plus the sly glow from city lights
3am - 4 am -- 4 seen

I would have driven to my dark site to do photos if it wasn't for the cloud ... didn't make that a worthwhile thing to docheers
Dave

 

[Andy Resnick]

It was the opposite of clear skies here. OTOH, this time of year, given the choice of 30F and clear or 70F and cloudy, I choose the latter.

 

[davenn]

wen out again this morning, drove to my dark site
there from 00:50 am till 03:40 am
here is a summary of observations ...
Geminids activity
I was battling lots of cloud

1 am - 2 am -- 12 meteors of the Geminids shower + 5 random ones
2 am - 3 am -- 17 meteors of the Geminids shower +3 random ones...
3 am - 3:4 am -- 9 meteors of the Geminids shower
even with the cloud and the lower than expected meteor counts, I'm still pleased I made the effort ... a pic of the best one caught on camera
As with these things, the meteors didn't always happen where the camera was pointing
30sec exposures on a 14mm Samyang f2.8, ISO 1250. this is straight out of camera, cropped and resized for the forum
haven't had a chance to do any lightroom cleaning up yet

cheers
Dave