Telescope Reviews: Geminid Meteors

I had never bothered to observe the Geminid meteor shower, but changed my mind after I read several reports of how reliable and fine they should be this year. So I bundled up (thick socks, ski pants, sweatshirt, scarf, and hat) inside of a sleeping bag on a reclining chair in my driveway at about 10 PM. My driveway faces east at the Sandia Mountains, where Gemini (the apparent origin or radiant of the meteors) faces me, and my garage hides some of the city skyglow. I also had a small notepad and a timepiece that could announce the time, so my hands could stay inside the sleeping bag and my eyes did not have to wander from the sky as I took rough notes.

I had learned of a storm heading to Albuquerque, so I decided to view the shower on Wednesday night (Dec 12th), which is a little before the peak of the event. I was not disappointed, seeing 45 meteor trails in the hour I was outside, as follows:

10:15 to 10:30 = 10 meteor trails
10:30 to 10:45 = 12
10:45 to 11:00 = 6
11:00 to 11:15 = 17

These somewhat random events, both in time and location, were more than I expected. A few trails were rather dim, a few were somewhat bright, and almost all were short in length but slow in speed. One, at about 11:11 PM, was long and bright as it moved along the entire eastern edge of Gemini from north to south. The local weather was about 30 F, 1-3 mph wind, and generally clear (I was able to easily see the outline of the Milky Way, the Double Cluster in Perseus, and the Beehive Cluster in Cancer).

Seeing the Geminid meteor shower was worthwhile for me, and I got to also enjoy seeing the winter sky rise from the Sandias in the quiet outdoors.

In fact, it was so enjoyable that I decided to try to repeat the observing on Thursday night (Dec 13th). When I was getting situated I noticed that the haze/thin clouds obscured faint stars, but I could still just see the dagger/sword stars of Orion, and then I saw a very bright meteor trail. Great, there was potential, and the night was 10 degrees warmer, too! As I settled in for the shower, I observed the following:

10:15 to 10:30 = 4 meteor trails
10:30 to 10:45 = 0

The haze was getting thicker, and I lost sight of the stars in Orion, then Sirius, then Castor and Pollux, but I could still see Jupiter high overhead. However this thick haze, and a 15-minute count of zero, made me decide to go in for the night. My folly of trying to observe again resulted in seeing 4 really bright and long meteor trails, and one faint one, in about 30 minutes. Astronomy sure does defer to the whims of weather, but good viewing is just fantastic!