Monday, December 10, 2007
Geminids, Morning of December 14-15 2007
Chart of the northern horizon as seen from the southern Hemisphere around 1:00 am local daylight saving time.
The astronomical event this week is the Geminid meteor shower visible on the mornings of Friday 14 Dec and Saturday 15 Dec.The Geminids are a fairly reliable meteor shower, with rates of about a meteor per minute, the debris from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. However, the radiant doesn't rise until just before midnight (daylight saving time) in most of Australia, so you will still have to disturb your sleep for this one. The shower is in a beautiful part of the sky however, with Mars just above, Orion above that and the Pleiades nearby so you won't mind really.
At 1.00 am in the morning AEDST (midnight, AEST) Castor (alpha Geminorum) is about two hand spans above the horizon and 10 hand spans to the left of due north. Pollux, the other twin, is less than a hand span to the left again. The radiant is just below Pollux. Unlike the Leonids, where there is a very narrow peak of high activity, the Geminids have a broad peak and will show good activity well before and after the peak, and on the day before and after. The peak is predicted to be around early evening on the 14th, before the radiant rises. So the best time is the morning of Saturday 15th, any time between 1:00 am and twilight. The moring of Friday will be pretty good too.
A printable spotters map is here.
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:17 pm 
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