Geminid Meteor Shower Coming Dec 12-16, 2010!

I’ve dug up this old meteor shower timelapse to remind people of the Geminid Meteor Shower is coming December 13, 2010. The most dense showers tend to be visible after midnight as we rotate around to the front of the earth as it travels through space, so for a nice preview, try Sunday night Dec 12 after midnight (which technically will be Monday). The moon will set around 12:39am on the West Coast, further enhancing viewing conditions.

NASA tells us that the Geminid Meteor Shower will be the best of 2010, with the best viewing occurring on the night of December 13-14. I hope to be out shooting on the three nights beginning on December 12, 13, and 14.

This timelapse video above is from the Orionid Meteor Shower in October 2009. (Check a few posts back on my blog for details on how to produce a timelapse from a sequence of photos.) For best viewing you must go to Flickr to view this, select HD to view it in high resolution, and click the icon towards the lower right to view it full screen. Enjoy!

All in all that Orionid shower had a pretty disappointing showing of meteors. I woke up to go out the second night, but it was below freezing with 20 knot winds, so given the results on the first night I decided not to go sit out in the potentially sub-zero wind chill for an hour or two!