MeteorWatch: The Geminids Are Coming : Big Vid

December 10, 2009 -- Starting on Saturday Dec. 12, an international astronomical event will captivate the social web. Using a multitude of social platforms, but focused on Twitter, the second MeteorWatch of 2009 -- possibly the final event of the International Year of Astronomy -- is planned to continue through the peak of the Geminid meteor shower until Dec. 14.

This professional trailer for the Geminids shower was created by MeteorWatch founder Adrian West, an amateur astronomer from the UK's Newbury Astronomical Society. The organization may only have approximately 50 members, but during the previous MeteorWatch in August 2009, thousands of Twitter users (or "tweeps") collaborated to become the world's largest virtual observatory.

"It would be great to break the record of numbers of people of the last [MeteorWatch] we did for the Perseids in August," Adrian told Discovery News in a recent interview. "We trended for over a day and knocked Miley Cirus off the number one spot!

"Over 10,000 tweets were recorded in one evening up until the method of recording them broke. Our blog received 25,000 hits. That's a tall order for this one but we hope we can do it better this time."

Discovery News will be participating in the upcoming MeteorWatch (follow us on @Discovery_Space), as will many other groups, institutions and individuals. There is no prerequisite to get involved and no equipment is required. All you need is a computer (or smart phone), a Twitter account and a love for seeing bright meteor streaks light up the night's sky. Just keep your fingers crossed for cloudless nights.

But what's the point in using Twitter when you can just go outside and enjoy time away from the computer? Well, you can do that too, but if you have a question about astronomy, there will be tens or even hundreds of amateur and professional astronomers to give you an answer. Also, if you take a picture of a shooting star trail you can share it with a vibrant crowd of like-minded online friends. Or, if you just want to feel a part of one of the biggest observation campaigns on the planet, all you have to do is send out a message, including the text "#MeteorWatch", and your social media astronomy adventure will begin.

For more information about MeteorWatch and instructions on how to get involved, follow the updates on the Newbury AS blog, the Newbury AS homepages and don't forget to follow @NewburyAS on Twitter.

--Ian O'Neill