Geminid meteor shower appears regularly. The best time to watch Geminid meteor shower is in the middle of December every year. So when is the maximum time of 2018 Geminid meteor shower? It seems that you can watch it today. For astronomy lovers, don't miss it!
Maximum time
The maximum time of Geminid meteor shower in 2018 will appear at 20:00 on December 14, with a peak flow of 120 meteors per hour.
In the evening of December 13-14, 2018, the Geminid meteor shower, the Gemini constellation castor and Pollux will send out brilliant light. The Geminid meteor shower is one of the best meteor showers in the northern or southern hemisphere. Meteors are quite abundant, comparable to the immortals in August. They are often bold, gorgeous and bright. In the dark, you usually catch 50 or more meteors an hour. In the early morning after midnight, the number of meteors is the largest, concentrated around 2 a.m. local time.
Geminid meteor showers will reach more than one per minute and up to 100 per hour. The best time to watch the Geminid meteor shower is around 2 a.m. local time. The moon is the first quarter moon. It will set around midnight. This year, there will be no moonlight interfering with the Gemini meteor shower. '
Geminid meteors are very young, only appeared in the middle of the 19th century, and the initial flow is low, 10-20 per hour. Since then, its annual flow has increased, and it has become the main meteor group every year. In 1998, the Geminid group was observed to be 140 per hour. At maximum, observers with good observation conditions can see more meteors.
There are three characteristics of Geminid meteor shower
First, the color is white; second, the speed of meteors is slow; third, there are many bright meteors, often fireflies. Geminid meteor shower is different from Leonid meteor shower in that its stars are bright, medium speed and rich in color. It has a strong attraction for visual observers, and its number of meteors is larger than Leonid meteor shower. Under ideal sky conditions, the theoretical zenith flux per hour is about 120.