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Geminid Meteor Shower

Posted by michael on from the bring-an-umbrella dept.

zetes writes "Space.com has an article here about a meteor shower called the Geminids, which will occur Saturday night (December 13th). Around 9 PM 'from mid-northern latitutes' will be a great time to look - at about 10 PM the Moon will rise and spoil the show. Enjoy!"

3 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Telescope viewing? by OneOver137 · · Score: 5, Informative

    viewing meteors through a telescope is not recommended. the field of view is very small and a meteor shower is a whole-sky event. To watch a shower, find a comfortable place to lay or sit, and stare in the general direction of the radiant (in this case, the constellation Gemini). For this shower, the radiant is close an obvious yellow "star" called Saturn. Save your scope for stars,planets, or deep sky objects.

  2. Re:9pm? by mph · · Score: 4, Informative
    What time zone? ET?
    Uh, "local time" would be my guess. The moon rises at about the same local time whether you're in the ET or PT time zone. Likewise, if you're on the west coast, you'll be looking at about the same part of the sky at 9:00 PT as east coasters were seeing at 9:00 ET.
  3. Re:9pm? by Tango42 · · Score: 3, Informative

    They don't. The radiant rises at the same time, regardless of timezone (that's the point of timezones, to make things rise at the same time everywhere - usually the Sun), so the meteor shower starts at the same time, regardless of timezone. (It should start shortly before the radiant rises) There's a slight chance the sky might clear before 9 here (UK), but i'm not hopeful.