Geminids - 13th December 2008

Zephyrus · Post by **Zephyrus** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:12 am

Well, I kinda planned an impromptu session with Lester, aka letburn to go to the open field beside Buangkok MRT station to stargaze because we saw that the skies were pretty clear around 6~7pm. Partly also because I wanted to test out the Meade LPI that I purchased from Chee Chien a week or two back.

We started at 10pm, and could see a couple of objects such as Orion, Pleaides and more.. but well seeing was still limited since the moonglow was very bright. Just as we were about to pack up at around 11.30pm, we saw the first meteor shoot by, it was very bright, should be brighter than Sirius. It was toward the East direction from the Moon, and lasted for about 2.5 seconds. Then we were like OMG, that was a shooting star!

We actually forgot about the Geminids since the moon was so bright, and we were really lucky to have seen a fireball. Then for the next 5 minutes, we kept our eyes glued to the sky, and then we saw another one, just as bright, but shorter and only lasted about 1 second. After that, we stayed for another 20 minutes, but nothing came so we went off.

Well, that's all! (:

ykchia · Post by **ykchia** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:37 am

Hi folks:

Some Gems seen in the video patrol.

http://nightevents.blogspot.com/2008/12 ... y-but.html

Cheers!

rgds
ykchia

Zephyrus · Post by **Zephyrus** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 9:57 pm

Cool, seems like most people didn't catch much of it. I'm so happy that we've actually managed to catch like 2 geminids (fireballs too) in less than 20 minutes. Seems like tonight is rainy and cloudy again, so yeah we were damn lucky last night! ^_^

Post by **Airconvent** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:07 pm

I have never tried to catch meteor showers here since one time many years ago at East Coast Beach.
I dutifully left the house at midnight and thinking I could be mugged for going to the beach alone at night but when I reached there, it took me 45min to find a carpark lot and NOWHERE on the beach could I find a spot I could lie down flat becaus it was choked full of people who read about the "spectacular showers" in the Straits Times that morning!

Zephyrus · Post by **Zephyrus** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:02 am

Lol, hahaha. Well, we didn't planned to go out to observe the Geminids.. but we managed to catch 2 fireballs. Was really lucky, and we actually even wanted to camp out tonight, but haha it rained the whole day.

superiorstream · Post by **superiorstream** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:17 pm

Hi,ALL
I was watching with my daughter(thats why we call ourself a stream/team)and we caught 12 meteors altogether-from 9.50pm to 3am.The first-brightest for the night- I saw was a bright meteor that streak across the sky westward from the south of Orion.Subsequent ones occured around Sirius and about 3 in the south, far south of Sirius at about 45 degrees above the horizon.These 3 meteor are very short and show very short trail.This is one of the best "meteor shower" in the past two years.

superiorstream · Post by **superiorstream** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:34 pm

Hi,All
Sorry,didnt indicate the date-its the 13 night/14 morning Dec 2008,and also I wish to add that activity subsided around 2am as the sky get more and more foggy.

Zephyrus · Post by **Zephyrus** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:34 pm

Yup, I noticed too the sky got more and more foggy after that time. I was still awake, but was at home haha. I think the one we saw was around Orion to Sirius. It was a longer streak, for the first one, then the other one was towards west of the moon, a short streak very fast too. Only I managed to catch it, while Lester missed it haha.

Canopus Lim · Post by **Canopus Lim** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 2:52 am

superiorstream wrote:Hi,ALL
I was watching with my daughter(thats why we call ourself a stream/team)and we caught 12 meteors altogether-from 9.50pm to 3am.The first-brightest for the night- I saw was a bright meteor that streak across the sky westward from the south of Orion.Subsequent ones occured around Sirius and about 3 in the south, far south of Sirius at about 45 degrees above the horizon.These 3 meteor are very short and show very short trail.This is one of the best "meteor shower" in the past two years.

Although I did not see the meteor shower since I am overseas now, but I would think this year is worse than the last 2 years. The last 2 years have been very good for Spore standard. I saw >10 meteors per hour for those previous Geminids. Last year I saw a very bright and green meteor... I call it the 'green goblin'. It was really nice.