Geminids: Year's Best Meteor Shower Late Saturday -- Will Weather Cooperate in Mansfield?

By Beth Dalbey and Barbara Heins.

The best meteor shower of the year is queuing up for its peak.

The peak times for viewing the Geminids – known as the “fireball” meteor shower because of their frequency and intensity – are late Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Friday night and Saturday morning may offer a sprinkling of meteors, which tend to be brightest and the most prevalent as evening deepens into late night, EarthSky.org says.

It’ll be cold, and you’ll want to see the sky in a dark place. The moon rises at around midnight, but you can still see many of the falling stars after that.

Here’s the National Weather Service’s Mansfield-specific forecast as of 10:30 a.m. Friday (Friday looks bad; Saturday night looks best; get the latest update in the forecast here):

• Tonight: A slight chance of snow showers after 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 23. Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
• Saturday: A slight chance of snow showers before noon, then a slight chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 35. Northwest wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
• Saturday Night: A slight chance of rain and snow showers before 8pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 26. Northwest wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

NASA reports that the Geminids are a relatively young meteor shower, with the first sightings occurring in the 1830s with rates of about 20 per hour.

• Photos of the Geminid meteor shower.

Over the decades the rates have increased, regularly spawning between 80 and 120 per hour at its peak on a clear evening.

Earthsky.org offers 10 tips for watching the year’s most spectacular meteor shower:

1. Be sure you know which days the shower will peak.
2. Find out the time of the shower’s peak in your time zone.
3. Watch on the nights around the peak, too.
4. Don’t take the notion of a radiant point too seriously.
5. Find out the shower’s expected rate, or number of meteors per hour.
6. You must be aware of the phase of the moon.
7. Dress warmly.
8. Bring along that Thermos of hot coffee or tea.
9. Bring a blanket or lawn chair.
10. Relax and enjoy the night sky.

The website also says: ”You need no special equipment — just a dark, open sky and maybe a sleeping bag to keep warm. Plan to sprawl back in a hammock, lawn chair, pile of hay or blanket on the ground. Lie down in comfort, and look upward.”

If the skies don’t cooperate, there’s one more chance this year to watch meteor showers with the Ursids, which peak Dec. 22-23, NASA says. Depending on cloud cover, darker new moon conditions mean the Ursids will radiate from the bowl of Ursa Minor, which you probably know as the Little Dipper.

If you happen to get pictures of the show, upload them on the Bulletin Board for your neighbors to see. Our platform makes it easy to create a gallery.