WRAL meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner said early Tuesday morning is actually the best time to watch the Geminid Meteor Shower.

Meteors were visible beginning around 10 p.m. Monday night as the constellation Gemini, where meters appear to be streaking outward from, rises above the horizon.

The show gets better in the hours before sunrise as Earth turns into the stream of particles, the source of the meteor shower, left by 3200 Phaethon.

Unlike other meteor showers which are fueled by dust and vapor spewed by icy comets as they are heated by the Sun, the 3.6-mile-wide 3200 Phaethon is a not-so-icy asteroid.

But it contains little to no ice, so we were intrigued by the possibility that sodium, which is relatively plentiful in asteroids, could be the element driving this activity."

While the Geminids will appear to come from the area just to the right of the twin stars Pollux and Castor in the constellation Gemini, they can appear anywhere in the sky.