Tonight’s Meteor Shower and the original 1883 work in the Castellani Collection
NIAGARA UNIVERSITY, N.Y. (December 13, 2017) – The annual Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight, with AccuWeather predicting that “up to 120 meteors an hour” will zip across the evening sky.
The Geminid meteor shower is nearly 200 years old, according to known records. The first recorded observation was in 1833 from a riverboat on the Mississippi River and at Niagara Falls. It was later documented in an original print by Asa Smith that was purchased by Niagara University’s Castellani Art Museum in 2008.
Titled View of the Meteoric Shower, as seen at Niagara Falls on the Night of the 12th and 13th of November, 1833, as part of Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy, the piece was originally aimed at school students, according to Christopher Lane, director of the Olde Philadelphia Print Shop.
To learn more, please contact Michael Beam, the Castellani Art Museum’s curator of exhibitions and special projects, at 716.361.8225 or mjbeam@niagara.edu.