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I observed from 1.05 AM (7:05 TU) to 3.07 AM (9:07 TU) on December 13th from Naperville, near Chicago (IL). During the two hours of stargazing I observed 38 meteors, 32 of whose were in fact Geminids. The radiant was at the zenith during the observation, but the limiting magnitude was only +5.2. Taking into account the obstructions in the field of view and other corrections (time to write the tracks data etc.) I estimate that the ZHR was around 30+-6.
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Here is a star chart showing the 32 tracked geminid meteors I observed
on December 13th. I centered my field of view right
at the location of the radiant (which is normally not good practice, since
the tracks will appear shorter on average), which allowed me to record
meteors radiating in all directions, thus providing a nice view of the
radiant. Many of the tracks were in fact very short, and one in particular
was almost pointlike (you can see its very short track - slightly exaggerated
in length to ensure visibility - right south of Castor in the map).
Another thing to note: the meteors tended to come in bunches of two or three,
showing some kind of "clustering": three times during the observation I
observed two tracks in a matter of few seconds, and then several minutes of
lack of activity. I doubt that this observation is significant, but maybe
other observers noticed the same feature ?
Send me your comments!
On December 14th I was able to observe for only about an hour, starting at 4:21 TU and ending at 6:12 TU. The sky was not clear of clouds, so the observation was often hindered by high obstruction fractions in the field of view. At 6:12 TU the clouds prevented further observations. Again, I noticed some clustering, but again I can't say that is a significant observation. Anyways I was able to see 24 Geminid meteors: here are the detailed numbers.
* 04:21 - 04:33 TU - Mv=+5.0 Obstr. = 40%: 4 Geminids
* 04:37 - 04:47 TU - Mv=+4.5 Obstr. = 50%: 1 Geminid
* 05:03 - 05:21 TU - Mv=+5.0 Obstr. = 35%: 3 Geminids
* 05:30 - 05:53 TU - Mv=+5.2 Obstr. = 10%: 14 Geminids
* 06:03 - 06:12 TU - Mv=+4.5 Obstr. = 20%: 2 Geminids.
I hope observers in other parts of the world had more luck! Anyways, many of the meteors were bright and slow, as is typical for this shower. I observed in the company of Fabio Happacher and Stefan Lammel, who also spotted about 20-30 meteors each, and despite the cold weather and the clouds we had a great time (and a couple of bottles of wine!).