Overview
- The shower reaches maximum activity from the night of December 13 into the early hours of December 14, with the best viewing from late evening through pre‑dawn.
- Observers under ideal dark skies can typically expect around 120 meteors per hour, with some official forecasts, such as Spain’s IGN, projecting up to 150 per hour in perfect conditions.
- The Moon will be waning at roughly 25–30% illumination and rising around 2 a.m. local time, so early‑night hours will be darker; after moonrise, looking west can help reduce glare.
- The Geminids stem from asteroid 3200 Phaethon rather than a comet, a rarity that continues to spur research into whether Phaethon is a rocky or extinct comet or a heat‑activated asteroid.
- Best results come with naked‑eye viewing from a dark location after 20–30 minutes of dark adaptation, as bright, often yellowish meteors streak across the sky at roughly 33–35 km/s.