From Nasa Website:
The Geminids are a different story. The first Geminid meteors suddenly appeared in the mid-1800's. Those early showers were unimpressive, boasting a mere 10-20 shooting stars per hour. Since then, however, the Geminids have grown in intensity until today it is one of the most spectacular annual showers. In 1996, the last time the Geminids appeared in a dark moon-less sky, observers saw as many as 110 per hour. Sky-watchers with clear skies should see at least that many this year if the Geminids continue to intensify. After the discovery of the Geminids in 1862 astronomers began searching for the parent comet. Most meteor showers result from debris that that boils off a comet's nucleus when it passes close to the sun. This debris orbits the sun along with the comet, forming a thin, elongated stream of meteoroids that become shooting stars when they hit Earth's atmosphere. Years of searching proved to no avail until finally, in 1983, NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite discovered a curious object moving in the same orbit as the Geminid meteoroid stream. The orbital match was so good that it had to be the source of the debris, but to the surprise of many it wasn't a comet. The source of the Geminids was apparently a rocky asteroid.
3200 Phaethon, as the asteroid is now known, is in a highly elliptical 1.4 year orbit that brings it within 0.15 AU (astronomical units) of the Sun. It made its closest recent approach to Earth in December 1997 when it passed within 0.31 AU of our planet.
So I was very excited about this as early as August as I missed the meteor showers then. My friend Alice told me about another friend Pete who lives in Priddy, and we can go there to watch it. I as usual went ahead with looking at the weather predictions by our UK Met office. According to them Priddy will have cloud cover. But we all decided to go there on 13th Monday evening.
Three of us viz. Alice, Vicky and me started the journey from Bristol and it was an uneventful one except we were joking about everything under the sun including my predictions. Of course it was cloudy during the journey and I was vindicated.
Wicked place our friend Pete lives and we piled in to his smallish but nice flat in Priddy. got ourselves settled in and as usual all the alcohol etc came out for our consumption. Well nice bit of ganga didn't go amiss with me as usual.
Kim another friend joined us later and after another hour or so we decided to go up this hill which is behind his adobe. Well as hills go it was all uphill. It was very difficult for me due to my problems with my pain ridden back. But I took a wee bit of Speed to kill my pain and it bloody worked. But my breathlessness was quite prominant and all can hear my laboured breathing.
Now the weather man was all wrong and the sky was clear and quater moon was prominant in the western sky. Alice joked about my predictions and my thoughts were, "Thank god she didn't listen to me." Aha aha!
By the time we traipsied frozen muddy fields and started climbing the hill. Yes another hill won't kill me but I will endure it with lots of huffing and puffing, And Alice as thoughtfull as she is about her mates objected to go all the way up the hill due to my objectional lungs. But after a small confab and Kim's call, "Come on lets climb it."; and my exuberant feeling after the speed and me saying, "Thats fine I can handle this and more." we went up the hill.
As we started climbing the hill we saw the first meteor. WOW! Is the only feeling I had. Then as we climbed we saw some more and I counted four. I stopped about 3/4 of the way and lied down on the frozen ground as my neck was going into spasms. Others except Kim lied down as well. Cor blimey this is great. Orion right on top of us. Thats where the buggers come into our atmosphere. What a theatre. No problem about the ground as it was frozen grass which goes crackling as I move. It was not wet but I can smell the cow poo. Who cares when the sky is clear, a rare occurrance in our country. I saw two biggish meteors and I counted eight and another in the corner of my eye. That is a record in my puny life. Kim said she saw eleven, but then again she climbed to the top of that hill.
Little by little orion drifted away towords the north and misty clouds started from the periphry and we decided to get back to the wormth of the house.
Coming down hill was good but in the dark it was a bit tricky where to put your step. What a beautiful evening. Thank you; all the people who went there, and special thanks to Alice who organised it and Vicky who drove us too and fro, and Pete who accommodated us even though he had to get to work in the morning. And Kim ofcourse who had to fimd her way.
I am a selfish person.If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed,Email me!
