Geminids meteor shower tonight & tomorrow

The Geminids meteor shower is upon us and it peaks the night from Saturday to Sunday, but it is also visible a couple nights before and after.

Weather forecast for Saturday to Sunday night is 80% cloudy, snow on Monday, so tonight is your best bet to see it.

The best time to watch meteor showers are between 11 pm and 3 am. A 34% moon will rise at 1 am Saturday morning, which will gradually wash out the sky a little, but might add an interesting 2nd object, so bring your long lens and watch it rising over the ocean (just a tad south of due east)

The radiant, where the meteors appear to come from is due east, see image above. Look for Jupiter, which will be the brightest dot in the sky. That means you can position yourself anywhere looking east, because you will be looking into the dark skies above the ocean. That makes finding a spot in New England easy.

Try to find a spot with some interest in the foreground, for example dune fences and dunes along the beach. See below for a few suggested spots, but anywhere looking east into darkness will work.

Use a super-wide angle lens with a wide aperture of 2.8 or less (1.8 is better). You can use a fisheye to cover even more of the sky. The meteors will come out of the radiant point, but you can see them all over the sky. Point your lens to the east, but leave at least 25% foreground to make it look interesting. Alternatively, you can take a really interesting foreground photo, then expand the sky to add your all-sky meteor photos.

Watch David Kingham's video on how to make meteors look like they come out of the radiant point. Include Polaris, the North Star into your composition for this to work, even if it's in the upper left corner.

Settings: wide open aperture (2.8 or less), exposure time of 30s with super-wide lenses will still look like star points. ISO between 1600 and 6400, depending on aperture and light pollution. Expose off of the left. Use an external or internal intervalometer to take back to back photos, without interruption.

And if you can't find meteors, you can stack them all up for a long star trail. Also, the aurora was very busy over the past three days, there is a chance that some of that is left to see tonight.

Suggested locations:

• Rexhame Beach along the dunes (but if winds go north/south, you will see LOTS of airplanes
• Nahant Canoe beach (bad parking)
• Rockport, Loblolly Point to Halibut Point, any beach looking east
• Cape Cod, lower branch going up, any beach (Nauset has a great lighthouse). Salt Pond or Fort Hill are dark enough
• Point Judith Lighthouse, RI
• Plum Island, Salisbury Beach