NOTTINGHAM, MD—Another meteor shower is set to grace the skies over Maryland on Sunday night.
The 2020 Geminid meteor shower is expected to peak on Sunday night, December 13 and into the morning hours on Monday, December 14.
The Geminids are widely recognized as the best annual meteor shower a stargazer can see, occurring between Dec. 4 to Dec. 17, with the best nights for viewing on December 13 and 14, according to NASA.
Realistically, the predicated rate for observers in the Northern Hemisphere is around 60 meteors per hour, meaning that observers can expect to see an average of one Geminid per minute in dark skies at the shower’s peak.
The Geminids will be even better in 2020. as this year’s peak coincides an almost-new moon, so there will be darker skies.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the best time to look for Geminids will be at about 2 a.m. Monday local time at your location, though they should start to be visible between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. local time, according to Space.com.
Observers should be sure to give themselves at least an hour of observing time, as it typically takes 20 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark, according to EarthSky.com.
At 5:30 p.m. EST, the Slooh online observatory will kick off a webcast hosted by Slooh astronomers Paul Cox and Bob Berman, with special guest Dr. Mike Shaw. You can watch the livestream on YouTube here.
See up to 100 meteors per hour this weekend!
You can see them every night this week leading up to the peak.Geminid Meteor Shower 2020 – Most Reliable This Year . Read all about it → https://t.co/j4tjpPTtsY#ThursdayThoughts #thursdayvibes #ThursdayMotivation pic.twitter.com/L0cXuBYHfx
— VirtualAstro (@VirtualAstro) December 10, 2020
