GEMINIDS 2017

Location:  Backyard Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  December 14, 2017 0310-0356hrs

Weather:  Partly to mostly cloudy, gusting winds moving to just north of east, -10C.

Attendance:  Myself.

Equipment:  Canon Rebel DSLR with 18-55mm lens on tripod.

Objective:  To observe as many Geminid meteors as possible during peak hour for this shower, which was reported to be between 0300-0400hrs on this morning.

Report:  Very dark skies with no Moon showing at this time.  Clouds were a factor, covering one part of the sky then another, but moved on quickly, and they were partially see-through.  No dew issue with camera, took many pictures.  Captured four geminids in four separate images.

Geminids came in bursts of two or three at a time and at one time the sky seemed to full of them, around 0340hrs.  Counted 32 Geminids with only 1 Sporadic.  Geminids were mostly quite bright, blue/white moving medium speed and medium brightness.  A few fainter ones, and two very bright ones.  One very very long and bright and left a smoke trail, to the right of Polaris.  Most observed were in the northern sky, between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia.

Seemed, on average, there was about 1 Geminid/min.  Best meteor shower I've seen in since the early 90s.

Geminid streaking past Polaris.

Facing southwest with Orion behind the big tree.

Note:  Images of shooting stars turned out much fainter than what was observed for some reason.