The Geminid meteor shower always happens in mid-December, and it's one of the most reliable meteor showers of the year.  You won't even need any special instruments to view them. Just make yourself comfortable and look up. These meteors appear in all parts of the sky. The name "Geminid" is derived from "Gemini", the constellation from where the showers will appear to originate. A meteor shower is typically related to a comet. When Earth moves though the dust stream left by a comet shedding its particles, we see flashes of light in our night sky. But with this shower, the object responsible appears to be an asteroid, and not a comet. Astronomers think that cracking from solar heating has caused the asteroid to eject particles, creating a debris stream that can be seen in our atmosphere.