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I went out with my friend Tony last night (14/12/2007) to a picnic ground near Wivenhoe dam just West of Brisbane. We arrived at about midnight and stayed until well into the twilight around 4am.
We immediately saw several meteors within the first minutes of arrival. We saw around 30 between midnight and 1 am but many of them were not Geminids! Thick cloud moved in between 1am and 2am and then cleared to patchy cloud for most of the rest of the night.
The sky was clear around the predicted peak of 2:45am AEST. Meteor activity was much lower around this time than between midnight and 1am.
Many of the meteors were not Geminds but seemed to be coming from a second radiant towards the East (saw around 10 between midnight and 1am from this second radiant). Did anyone else see this?
There may also have been a third radiant in the South around Crux/Centaurus with activity around 5 per hour.
I have always found the Geminids to be characterised by periods of intense activity followed by long periods of nothing (often around 15 minutes long) and last night was no exception to this. The activity of the second radiant in the East filled in the gaps in the Geminds though. I've never noticed this radiant before.
Many of the meteors were slow and many left trains that persisted for several seconds. Didn't see anything I would have described as a fireball though. I've usually seen several fireballs when watching the Geminids in the past.
Due to the activity of at least two radiants in widely different parts of the sky as well as the sporadics this was the best meteor show I've seen in many years.
Have fun,
Doug
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