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Ten tips for watching the Geminid meteor shower|

The Geminid Meteor Shower begins Thursday, but residents of Tucson, Ariz., got a preview Wednesday night as . The shock wave rattled windows and scared local residents, who contacted local media and took to the Internet to inquire about "something suspicious."|

The Geminid Meteor Shower will be visible all over the world until early next week, and NASA is predicting a particularly striking show. The meteors will be most visible each day from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. ET.|

The Geminid meteor shower is one of the most prolific of the big, annual meteor showers, and also one of the strangest. When viewing conditions are ideal, it is possible to see between 100 and 140 meteors per hour. However, this year the Geminid peak coincides with a nearly-full moon. Because the light of the moon will drown out some of the dimmer meteors, sky watchers can expect to see between 40 to 60 meteors tonight.|

Bottom line: The 2012 Geminid shower – and a possible new meteor shower that might be coinciding with the Geminids – is proving to be fantastic as seen from around the globe!|

The Geminid Meteor Shower will be visible all over the world until early next week, and NASA is predicting a particularly striking show. The meteors will be most visible each day from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. ET.|

But keep this in mind: at this time of year, meteor watching can be a long, cold business. You wait and you wait for meteors to appear. When they don't appear right away, and if you're cold and uncomfortable, you're not going to be looking for meteors for very long! Therefore, make sure you're warm and comfortable. Warm cocoa or coffee can take the edge off the chill, as well as provide a slight stimulus. It's even better if you can observe with friends. That way, you can keep each other awake, as well as cover more sky. Give your eyes time to dark-adapt before starting.|

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For skywatchers in , Sunday's Geminid meteor shower promises to be one of the year's best.|

The Geminid meteor shower will be at its best after dark on Thursday and before dawn on Friday, according to the editors of StarDate magazine.|

In addition, according to Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown in the 2010 Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, peak activity is projected to occur at or near 6 a.m. EST on Dec. 14. Under normal conditions on the night of maximum activity, with ideal dark-sky conditions, at least 60 to 120 Geminid meteors can be expected to burst across the sky every hour on the average (Light pollution greatly cuts the numbers). So, in 2010, along with the lack of significant moonlight, North Americans are projected to be the best situated to catch the very crest of the shower, when the hourly rates conceivably could exceed 120.|