Nuts. It’s been rainy and cold here in NorCal, and so I almost totally forgot about the Geminids! No, they’re not Cylons from Gemenon. They’re meteors from Phaethon!
Seriously, this is the only known meteor shower linked with an asteroid as opposed to a comet. As I wrote recently, meteor showers come from comets. As the comet is warmed by the Sun, it slowly breaks up and leaves, well, crap in its wake: gravel, dust, chunks of ice. These orbit the Sun, and sometimes the Earth plows through them. We get lots of meteors, and it’s called a shower.
But in the case of the Geminids, the orbits match that of an actual asteroid named Phaethon, a big ol’ chunk of rock that happens to orbit the Sun on a path that takes it pretty close to ours. This is odd, to say the least, but one possible explanation is that Phaethon used to be a comet, but lost all its ice. Now all that’s left is a rock, which looks asteroidish. Many other objects have characteristics that blur the line between asteroids and comets, like Chiron. Maybe Phaethon is just a little bit more advanced.
Anyway, the shower peaked last night, but Thursday night is still a good one (except for me; I don’t expect to see a star — including the nearest one — for a few more weeks). If you want to take a look, then check out the Sky and telescope site, or the NASA Geminids site.
December 14th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Ditto on the clouds and dare I say it, rain in Jackson, WY instead of snow. I have missed the last 3 showers due to clouds/smoke/moon,rain.
December 14th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
It’s always something… The clouds are out there to get us, I tell ya. Though I had a sweet-arse dream about them the other day. I was looking up and the sky was going crazy with them. But it was only a dream…….
December 14th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
It supposed to be clear here next week but its gonna be sub freezing and there will probably be snow on the ground. I’ll take my scope outside anyway.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
In East Texas, I went out last night at 9:30 to see what the sky looked like. It was crystal clear and I saw one meteor. I went back out fairly early at 12:20 and stayed until 12:50. I saw 18 more meteors. Not too bad for so early. The seeing was spectacular. Not a wink to be seen. The light pollution was about normal for the area; about magnitude 2.0 over the city which is to my North.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
In East Texas, I went out last night at 9:30 to see what the sky looked like. It was crystal clear and I saw one meteor. I went back out fairly early at 12:20 and stayed until 12:50. I saw 18 more meteors. Not too bad for so early. The seeing was spectacular. Not a wink to be seen. The light pollution was about normal for the area; about magnitude 2.0 over the city which is to my North.
Three more votes today!
December 14th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Not sure how clear it will be by the time the radiant rises tonight, but I will check to see. Last night the Geminids were beautiful. Saw a good number before I had to go to work for my primary (environmental science get-up-and-go-to-the-office) job. If only there were more time for working at the observatory! Well, at least I saw some meteors last night, it was perfectly clear. Also used my binoculars to check out the Orion nebula and the Pleiades. They looked great!
December 14th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
You might want to read my bautforum.com post about a beautiful Earth grazer I saw tonight!
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=50827
J. D.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Weather is horrid here for meteor watching. Too much clouds, not enough sky.
Not surprising, considering it rained all day.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
foggy here on the Jersey Shore, so I see nothing tonight. It was crystal clear all day too until about an hour before sunset.
As an aside, is it not always cloudy in NorCal? I mean Oregon and Washington ( spent three years at Ft. Lewis so I KNOW the weather there) are pretty close. What does a prof. astronomer pick a place like that to live?
December 14th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
It was cloudy here last night, but I was just outside and caught a loooong straggler, straight out of Gemini, and right across a sky already going nuts with northern lights. Way too cool! And it’s even relatively warm out!
December 14th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
On Tuesday night, in coastal Southern California, I went outside for a cigarette and saw a couple of very bright meteors, complete with trails. I wondered if there was a satellite burning up. Saw another one on another smoke break.
Last night, finally aware that the Geminids were upon us, I was particularly attentive but only caught one out of the corner of my eye. Didn’t stay up late enough for the main show, though, and there was a light cloud layer. Tonight it’s clear, and nothing so far.
December 15th, 2006 at 4:00 am
Lucky America! Here in England we sit downwind of 3000 miles of ocean and the result is 100% cloud cover nearly all the time. The result is that I have never once seen the Leonids or Geminids in my entire life (boo hoo).
It amazes me today that so much good astromony was done in England (Flamsteed, Herschel, Halley, et al.) in ye olden days. The patience of those guys must have been immense.
December 15th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Well, it turns out that it was clear last night! Got to see a few more Geminids. Was very nice out for December. Also watched a satellite go by through binoculars. Very cool!
December 15th, 2006 at 11:03 am
I saw two last night in west Tennessee. They looked so close to the ground that (1) I expected to hear the explosion from the impact, and (2) for a while there I was a little scared one would hit me.
December 15th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
I watched the geminids from a local park in northern colorado. It was partly cloudy, with openings from orion to cassiopeia. I saw about 10 meteors in about 30 minutes. not too bad considering the light polution and cloud cover. Around 2am a police officer drove by and asked me what I was doing in the park, since it is supposed to be closed. I told him I was watching the geminids, and lo and behold, he actually knew what they were! He even said that he took a few minutes and saw some when he was farther north (out of town and much darker). He left me alone, since I wasn’t doing drugs, drinking, or as he put it, making out in the back seat…
December 15th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
We went outside last night hoping that the solar flare was strong enough to cause aurorae all the way down to Ohio. But either there weren’t any, or the sky brightness was too high. Either way we didn’t see any. BUT, we did see a nice showing from the meteor shower. After we saw the first three in less than two minute, all coming from the same direction, Rob remembered that the Geminids were going on. We were out for about 20 minutes and saw about 10.
December 15th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Smoking dulls your vision…