2009 Geminid Meteor Shower, Peak Dec 14

[andrew_t1000]

Sorry Wayne, but I'm going to rub it in!

Last night was GREAT!
It didn't get below 19C and I saw around 40 meteors between 11pm and 4am!
I have a few photographs but with a 15 sec exposure at F2, 1600 ASA, they are really faint.
I've been trying to dig them out of the background noise, but am not having much luck.
I did manage to make a great timelapse of Orion and Gemini though.
Is the composition of the Geminids known?
They were a lot smaller, fainter and a different colour to the Leonids.
When is the next meteor shower?

How do I post a photograph here from my myspace page?
It's pretty easy to get a you tube video here, but sharing photo's from myspace don't seem ta work, what am I doing wrong?
I'll upload what I shot last night and share it here latter.

 

[MeteorWayne]

The Geminids are a lot different than the Leonods. They hit at only half the speed, so for the same size particle, only have 1/4 the energy (light). If they were fainter, though, it's probably because last night was post peak; the night before peak when I had clear skies (56 total, 37 Geminids in 4.2 hours) had the highest average meteor brightness of any night since last year's Geminids (12 nights between, 25 total hours). The Geminids, like many showers, are mass sorted with the largest particles intersecting the earth before the maximum rate.

They also tend to be denser than most shower meteors, due to changes caused during their repeated very close approachs to the sun, but still cometary (fluffy) compared to asteroid generated meteoroids.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Beautiful Geminid Fireball:

copyright: Wally Pacholka / AstroPics.com / TWAN

From spaceweather.com

On Monday morning, Dec. 14th, at 3:59 am Pacific Standard Time, a piece of extinct comet 3200 Phaethon hit Earth's atmosphere over the Mojave desert in California. This was the result:

 

[MeteorWayne]

Nice APOD of Geminids from "Down Under"

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091218.html