Best Time to Watch Geminid Meteor Shower in Elkridge

By Beth Dalbey

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, Dec. 13 and 14.

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, according to EarthSky.org.

Howard County will have partly cloudy skies Friday into Saturday, the National Weather Service says, with the same chance for a partly cloudy sky Saturday night into Sunday.

The Howard County Conservancy is hosting a meteor shower watch party from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13, into Sunday, Dec. 14, at its location at 10520 Old Frederick Road in Woodstock. Dr. Joel Goodman and Dr. Alex Storrs will be in attendance.

• Photos of the Geminid meteor shower.

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.

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. 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.

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, share them on the Elkridge Patch bulletin board!

Photo via EarthSky.org