Why do meteor shower peaks always occur inconveniently early in the morning?

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This is a question I came up with after my last two meteor shower viewing attempts in October and November left me underwhelmed.  I'm not much of a night owl so I did my viewing from when it got dark (5:30ish this time of year) until 8PM or so and only saw maybe 4 meteors in that time.  Cool, but underwhelming.  The media reported the peak times for viewing were right before dawn.  I started noticing they all have their peaks early in the morning hours and wondered why none ever peak at more like 8PM.

If I were smarter, I probably could've figured this out myself.  I finally got around to Googling it and it only took 2 seconds to find the answer.  It turns out, that at dawn, the sky overhead is aimed in the direction the earth is orbiting around the sun.  As a result, the debris fields the earth is passing through that that is the source of the meteors is directly overhead at your location at dawn.  The hours just before dawn when it is dark enough to see them should therefore have the most visible meteors.  At dusk, the opposite is true, so there are fewer meteors that make it into your field of view.



I guess I'm going to have to find some way to stay up and start my skywatching after midnight next time to get a better show!  The Geminids are coming up and peak Dec. 14th at, you guessed it, dawn.  Unfortunately, the moon will be bright during this shower and hinder seeing.  

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