The weather was not kind to us for November’s Leonid meteor shower. Hopefully the elements will be in our favour when the Geminids make their annual appearance on the night of Saturday 13th December.

What are Geminids?

There are a couple of unusual features about this meteor shower. Firstly, most meteor showers are linked to dust and debris from comets. The Geminids however were found to originate from an asteroid, identified by NASA in 1983, as 3200 Phaethon.

At the time this caused great excitement amongst astronomers. If it really was an asteroid then why is so much material ejected from it? Asteroids are usually quite resilient.

The consensus is that Phaethon is an extinct comet which has acquired a rocky crust composed of interplanetary dust grains.

The second feature of note is that at least some of the meteors should appear as very bright pale green streaks of light.

What can people expect to see?

Richard Angwin - Wiltshire weather is his expertise.

Whilst the Geminids often consist of very bright meteors streaking across the sky at a rate of up to 80 per hour, this year's display occur less than one week after the full moon.

The light from the moon will obscure the fainter meteors.

If skies are relatively clear then it is still worth keeping an eye on the sky during the late evening and night.

How to observe the Geminids

To best view the Geminids , stand with your feet pointing north, west or southwards and look up at an angle of about 45 degrees.

The point at which the meteors appear to originate (the radiant) can be traced back to just above Castor which, along with Pollux, makes up the Twins in the constellation Gemini.

Richard Angwin
Points West Weatherman