Until December 16, stargazers can revel in some cosmic pyrotechnics courtesy of the Geminids, a meteor shower which for 10 days each year fills our skies with up to 100 meteors an hour.
The Geminids are created each year by the passage of the rocky asteroid 3200 Phaethon, and is one of only two annual meteor showers to not originate from comets. Because of this, Geminid meteors are rocky and grit like, making their trails far brighter and more persistent than those of other icy meteor showers.
If your looking to get pictures of this event you best be prepared. Your best bet is a DSLR with a wide angle lens, a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release. You’ll need to lock off your camera, use a narrow aperture and slow shutter speed, anything up to 30 seconds will produce a glistening starscape and, hopefully, a few bright shooting stars. It’s even possible to get shots with a smartphone by using a long exposure app like ‘LongExpo’ (iOS) or ‘Camera FV-5 Lite’ (Android).
Of course, your greatest obstacle is the dreary British Weather, however, Wednesday (10 December) night looks to be the clearest if the forecast is to be believed, so wrap up warm, head to a park or a green space far from the city lights, and look skywards for a truly out-of-this-world fireworks display.
If you stay up late enough, and don’t want to get caught in the weather, you can catch the live stream from the Slooh Community Observatory, which covers the peak of the shower on Dec, 14 2014 at 1:36 AM GMT. Follow this link to the live stream website.
Adam Niblett
Image by Kim MyoungSung (CC 2.0)