Topic awaiting preservation: Geminid meteor shower is underway (Page 1 of 1)

GEMINID METEORS: The 2004 Geminid meteor shower is underway. Midnight sky
watchers can expect to see bright meteors shooting out of the
constellation Geminid--at least a few per hour. Rates will increase
many-fold on Dec. 13th when the shower peaks.

Because this meteor shower has such a broad peak, a good display is
possible twice: on Monday morning, Dec. 13th, during the dark hours before
sunrise and again on Monday evening, Dec. 13th, especially during the
hours around midnight.

Now if only those clouds would disperse

[doh] a link or two would be useful [/doh]

Space Weather.Com
Meteors

(Edited by Tao on 12-13-2004 13:49)

I missed that Mars thing a few weeks/months ago due to cloud cover. That really sucked.

Back in the late '80s, a bud of mine and I did some meteor shower watching.
My main mistake was scanning the skies instead of just watching a small portion.

Just a quick check and it might have been Haley's back in 1986.
I remember watching Haley's back then, but I don't know if the meteor shower watching was Haley's.

Yeah, these clouds are killing me. Hopefully I can catch a glimpse when it clears up.

I saw dozens of meteors a few years back at the height of the Leonid shower. It was fantastic and got me hooked on meteor watching.
As a general rule the meteors come from the part of the sky that the shower is named after. So the Geminid meteor shower seem to appear from the constellation of Gemini, and the Leonid shower from the constellation of Leo.
My next step will be to photograph these events. I can't manage it yet as you really need a camera with a shutter release cable and a function to keep the shutter open for more than 2 seconds. (Are you listening santa)?
Here are a few links to good online guides to Astrophotography.
David Ratledge
Jerry Lodriguss
Michael A. Covington

:::tao::: ::cell::

man, i stayed up late just to get a shot of seeing this. was outside around 8pm and everything was nice and clear (even though the lights around my apartment complex is a little much), around midnight.....clouds galore!

what a bummer! I have seen a few meteor showers and they're very cool to watch. Oh well, maybe next time

Later,

C:\

Same here C:\
Ah well there y'are. Hopefully we will eventually get a clear night and by that time I will have a suitable camera and experience to capture some of the elusive stella streakers.
I heard tell that in northern America and especially Canada you get to see quite a few Northern Lights too, that is something else I'd love to witness.