Geminids: Year 2017 Rains Of Shooting Stars !!

The year 2017 will be particularly good for those who love watching the rain of falling stars or for those who want to start contemplating this fascinating phenomenon. The visibility of periodic meteor shower varies with moon cycles, less light means better visibility. This year will be particularly good because the heaviest rains will fall with very little interference from the light of the moon.

What is Geminid Meteor?

The Geminids are a shower of shooting stars which occurs every year in December, when the Earth, in its orbit around the Sun, crosses the current of debris associated with 3200 Phaeton.
Much less famous than the Perseids of the sweet summer nights, the Geminids meteorite swarm is yet one of the most beautiful of the year - if not the most beautiful - and the favorite of many seasoned observers.
The Geminids owe their name to the position of the radiant within Gemini, near Castor, one of the two brightest stars in the constellation.

This meteoritic swarm, active between December 7th and 17th of each year, is called the "Geminids" because its radiance is located in the constellation Gemini (Gemini), not far from the star Castor. Known since 1830, research has shown that it originated in the object (3200) Phaeton, listed as "potentially dangerous asteroid" since its discovery in 1983. In reality, Phaeton would be an old comet, exhausted by its many journeys, breathless and without the least hair.

The swarm of shooting stars of the epsilon-Geminides Its name comes from the star from which they seem to come, namely the epsilon Gemini star, in the constellation Gemini, called Gemini in Latin.
The origin of shooting stars is uncertain. They could come from either Comet Ikey or Comet Nishikawa-Takamizawa-Tago.
The first observations of this swarm date back to 1868. Other observations were reported in 1879 and 1887. This swarm was little observed later. It was in 1958 that it was rediscovered thanks to photographs, and later by echo technique. And it is in 1965 that the first visual study was realized.
At a speed of 70 km / s, shooting stars are fast, compared to 15 km / s for slower ones.

Each year, the Earth crosses a cloud of dust and pebbles, probably debris of the asteroid named 3200 Phaethon. Some of this debris penetrates the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and is consumed, causing beautiful luminous trails in the sky: the shooting stars.

A shooting star usually lasts only a fraction of a second: you must be lucky to see the phenomenon by chance; but precisely, the day of maximum Geminides offers great opportunities to observe! In addition, the shooting stars of the Geminids are a little slower than others (like the Perseids) and are therefore more easily captured by the eye.

How many shooting stars?

the IMO predicts a peak at 120 shooting stars per hour at the peak time. In theory, so it's 2 shooting stars per minute! In theory only because, as some are not bright, and it is not possible to observe all the sky at once, we miss a lot. Fortunately, with a little patience, the show is guaranteed: it is very rare that by observing carefully for fifteen minutes we do not observe many beautiful shooting stars! The lucky ones can even see many at once, or shooting stars particularly long and bright: it is called a meteor, even a racing car when a large piece of rock is consumed for several seconds and emits a very bright light.

Where to observe? in which direction ?

It is enough to settle comfortably in a well clear place and preserved parasitic lights (lampposts ...). It is best to settle on a deckchair, to observe a large portion of sky.The shooting stars seem more or less from the constellation Gemini, hence the name Geminides. But in practice, the direction or look is not very important: shooting stars can be seen everywhere, the important thing is to observe as much sky as possible.

source: https://www.space.com/34921-geminid-meteor-shower-guide.html