Wednesday, December 12, 2007

"Best Meteor Shower of 07" December 13-14

Hi all:

According to Space.com, the best meteor shower of the year peaks on the overnight of December 13 to 14. Here's a snippet from the article that gives some skywatching advice for this year's Geminids:

... the Geminids are predicted to reach peak activity on Dec. 14 at 16:45 GMT. That means those places from central Asia eastwards across the Pacific Ocean to Alaska are in the best position to catch the very crest of the shower, when the rates conceivably could exceed 120 per hour.


"But," he adds, "maximum rates persist at only marginally reduced levels for some 6 to 10 hours around the biggest ones, so other places (such as North America) should enjoy some fine Geminid activity as well.

Indeed, under normal conditions on the night of maximum activity, with ideal dark-sky conditions, at least 60 to 120 Geminid meteors can be expected to burst across the sky every hour on the average (Light pollution greatly cuts the numbers) ....


Read more about the Geminid in the rest of the article here.


Enjoy!


hrh

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the notification. Last night as I was getting on the highway, I thought I saw a "shooting star" and didn't realize we were near the time of a shower. I know the Leonids are in November. Maybe it was an early Geminid! I'll try to look for some tonight.

C.J. Darlington said...

Darn! It was cloudy last night!

hrh said...

Congratulations on seeing a meteor, hrp!

Yep, we had a winter storm Thursday night, C. J., though it may have cleared up some overnight, I didn't get up to check. :(

There's always next year ... :)