Geminids Meteor Shower in New Zealand

The Geminids are the richest meteor shower New Zealand sees all year. At peak, a dark rural site under clear skies can deliver more than a meteor a minute, many of them slow, bright, and tinged with yellow or green. The peak lands in mid-December every year, right when New Zealand evenings are warm and the nights are long enough to make late viewing comfortable.

When to watch the Geminids

The Geminids peak on the night of 13–14 December every year. Rates build steadily from around 8 December and tail off by 17 December, so the few nights on either side of the peak are still worth stepping outside for. The shower is active from about dusk onwards because the radiant — the point in the sky the meteors appear to stream from — rises in the north-east not long after sunset from New Zealand latitudes and climbs high through the night.

Where to look from New Zealand

Look to the north and north-east after about 10 pm. The radiant sits near the bright star Castor in the constellation Gemini. You do not need to stare straight at it — meteors will streak across any part of the sky — but meteors trace back to that point, so facing roughly north gives you the best field of view. By 1 am the radiant is well above the horizon and rates climb toward their peak. Because the Geminids favour the Northern Hemisphere slightly, southern New Zealand sees somewhat lower numbers than Auckland or Northland, but every part of the country gets a strong show.

How to get the best view

• Get at least 30 minutes of drive-time away from city lights. The difference between a suburban backyard and a genuinely dark rural site is not subtle — it is the difference between seeing 10 meteors an hour and 80.
• Give your eyes 20 minutes in full darkness before you judge the sky. Check your phone and you start over.
• Lie back on a sun lounger, a deck chair that reclines, or a groundsheet and sleeping bag. Craning your neck for an hour ruins the experience.
• Face roughly north, but take in as much sky as you can. Meteors are longer and more dramatic the further they appear from the radiant.
• Check the Moon. A bright Moon washes out fainter meteors and can cut visible rates in half. The tool at the top of this page shows Moon phase for your location.
• Dress warmer than you think. Even summer nights inland cool fast once you are lying still for an hour.
• Bring a red torch, not a white one, if you need to read a chart or pour a drink. Red light preserves dark adaptation.

What causes the Geminids

Almost every meteor shower comes from debris left behind by a comet. The Geminids are the exception. Their parent body is 3200 Phaethon, a three-mile-wide object that behaves like an asteroid but sheds dust like a comet as it swings close to the Sun. Phaethon's orbit brings it nearer the Sun than any other named asteroid, and the heat stress appears to crack its surface and release the stream of rocky grains that Earth runs into every December. Because those grains are denser and a little slower than the icy particles of a typical cometary stream, Geminid meteors tend to burn longer and brighter than the average shower.

The meteors themselves

Geminid meteors enter the atmosphere at about 35 kilometres per second — medium-fast by meteor-shower standards. That is slow enough that the brighter ones leave a visible trail for a second or more, and fast enough that they routinely flare to magnitudes rivalling the brightest stars. Colours come from the chemistry of the grain and the air it is hitting: sodium gives a yellow tint, magnesium burns blue-green, and iron adds orange. On a dark night from New Zealand, under a clear moonless sky near peak, 80 to 120 meteors an hour is a realistic count.

Forecast for your night

Use the live viewing panel at the top of this page to see whether the sky will be clear where you are. For the full night-by-night cloud, Moon and darkness forecast across every New Zealand region, visit the New Zealand Stargazing Forecast.