Shower with Sarge and “The Geminids”
All cachers are welcome to come out and enjoy the best heavenly show of the year. Bring your favorite chair, a favorite hot chocolate mug, a favorite blanket and enjoy some hot chocolate and good times with friends. There will be a new moon that night and the viewing, baring any clouds will be fantastic.
The event will be at Chickagami Park, 7957 Tavern Road (Route 168), Parkman Township, Parkman, OH 44021. I have the Overlook Shelter reserved from 1700 hours till 2300 hours.
There will be a big pot of hot water going with plenty of hot chocolate mix for your enjoyment. I'll have a raffle for a few new Geocoins and other caching stuff.
If your planning on bringing a dish to share (Hint: Chili would be great!) please post it with your “will attend” log so others will know what your bringing. Please be sure to sign the log book when you arrive.
Park Entrance: N41° 22.893 W81° 04.490
Parking Location: N41° 22.945 W81° 04.419
Overlook Pavilion: N41° 22.980 W81° 04.411
Light discipline will be in effect at the event site.
With the snow at this time of the year you will not need your headlights after you turn into the park entrance from the road. The parking area is a short, straight drive from the park entrance. Please switch off your headlights after turning into the park drive, and use your parking lights the rest of the way to the parking area.
Important!
Before you arrive at the event be sure you have a headlamp with red LED's or a red filter on your flashlight. Headlamps and flash lights that do not have red LED's or red filters will not be allowed anywhere at the event site. This is important. A white light shined into peoples eyes is not safe and will ruin their night vision.
Your eyes will take about 10 to 20 minutes to adjust, allowing your night vision to start working. Once your night vision has adjusted you will be able to fully enjoy the Geminids meteor shower.
The Geminid Meteor Shower
What is a meteor shower?
A meteor shower is a spike in the number of meteors or "shooting stars" that streak through the night sky. Most meteor showers are spawned by comets. As a comet orbits the Sun it sheds an icy, dusty debris stream along its orbit. If Earth travels through this stream, we will see a meteor shower. Although the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, if you trace their paths, the meteors in each shower appear to "rain" into the sky from the same region.
Where are the Geminids from?
Most meteor showers come from comets, which spew ample meteoroids for a night of 'shooting stars.' The Geminids are different. The parent is not a comet but a weird rocky object named 3200 Phaethon, an asteroid discovered in 1983 that sheds very little dusty debris, not nearly enough to explain the Geminids.
Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids' is by far the most massive. When you add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500. This makes the Geminids the 900 pound gorilla of meteor showers. Yet 3200 Phaethon is more of a 98 pound weakling.
This meteor shower gets the name "Geminids" because it appears to radiate from the constellation Gemini. With an average of 100 meteors per hour radiating from near the bright star Castor, this end-of-the-calendar shower is usually one of the year’s best.
Each year the Geminids reach their maximum just four days later in the lunar cycle than the Perseids do. So, for this year's performance, the Moon will be new. Better still, you don't have to stay up until the wee hours to see them, at mid-northern latitudes, the radiant is well up in the sky by 2100 hours.
This event hosted by a member of the NorthEast Ohio Geocachers.