Hi Tony I watched the Geminid meteor shower from a frosty N. Ireland from 00.00-07.00 UT and was delighted by the incredible show. The moonlight did not even inhibit the show at all. I even seen a Geminid 1 degree from the Moon itself. On many occasions I seen two at the same time, these 'chasers' where on the same track with 20 degrees of sky between them. I even seen 3 within 2 sec's. I observed several incredible fireballs the likes of which I have not seen since the Leonids of 2006. The first was mag -6, another emerald coloured FB illuminated the clouds from behind. The highlight occured before dawn when an incredible fireball(mag unknown)dived into the eastern sky. It had a beauty which is difficult to convey. The head was several times the dia of the Moon and sported a stupendous purple colour which I have never seen before. The tail stetched across the entire sky with white linear segments giving the impression of a great comet. What a night!. I caught a few on camera. This one was mag -4. I havent checked my records yet but I must have seen over 80 meteors.

Photo details: Fujifilm S6500fd 6.3MP at ISO400 30 sec exp at F/3.6.

Jens Hackmann, driving near Bad Mergentheim, Germany
Dec. 13, 2008

I was driving through the night, testing the video mode of the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II. I fixed the camera in my car and filmed my way through the night. I was astonished, that all stars of Orion could be seen on the video, even M 42! And then a Geminid meteor ran through the field of view...

The nearly-full moon interfered badly, anyway I managed to capture six Geminid meteors during 2-hour observing session. This blilliant -5 magnitude beauty was the brightest one.

This is a composite image of 60 Geminid meteors caught on a video allsky camera. This was before the shower peak, and under somewhat cloudy skies. The Moon provided a lot of interference, but has been eliminated from most of the frames combined here.

From my backyard observatory my "NorthEast Video Sky Camera" captured 10 of the brightest Geminid Meteors, despite the Very Bright Big Full Moon....from around Midnight until 3:00am EST this morning (unfortunately we lost power at 3:10am) I captured 26 meteors total in just this 70 degree portion of the sky. The Geminids are definitely arriving and and some really bright ones too! The Time Stamp is from the brightest -4 mag Geminid Meteor at top center!