For this eclipse totality will be visible from northern Australia and the southern Pacific Ocean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_November_13,_2012
The most populous city to experience totality will be Cairns, which will experience 2 minutes of totality just an hour after daybreak (6:38 am AEST) with the sun at an altitude of just 14°. Norfolk Island, a small pacific island west of Australia, will experience a partial eclipse with a maximum of 98% of the sun obscured at 9:37 am NFT and an altitude of 42°.
Parts of northern New Zealand including Auckland will experience a partial eclipse with over 80% of the sun obscured. Christchurch and points north will see at least 60% of the sun obscured. Maximum eclipse over New Zealand will occur around 10:30 AM NZDT (21:30 UTC).
Parts of central Chile, specifically the Los RÃos and Los Lagos regions from Valdivia (63% obscured) south to Quellón (54% obscured) will see a partial eclipse with over half the sun obscured at sunset, over the coast. Points north up to about Santiago will see the eclipse begin as the sun is setting.
Radiating from the constellation Leo the Lion, the Leonid meteor shower is famous. Historically, this shower has produced some of the greatest meteor storms in history – at least one in living memory, 1966 – with rates as high as many thousands of meteors per hour. Indeed, on that beautiful night in 1966, the meteors did fall like rain. Some who watched the shower said they felt as if they needed to grip the ground, so strong was the impression of Earth plowing along through space, fording the meteoroid stream. The meteors, after all, were all streaming from a single point in the sky – the radiant point – in this case in the constellation Leo the Lion. Leonid meteor storms sometimes recur in cycles of 33 to 34 years, but the Leonids around the turn of the century – while wonderful for many observers – did not match the shower of 1966. And, in most years, the Lion whimpers rather than roars, producing a maximum of perhaps 10-15 meteors per hour. Like most meteor showers, the Leonids ordinarily pick up steam after midnight and display the greatest meteor numbers just before dawn. In 2012, however, the waxing crescent moon will setting at early evening, leaving a dark night for Leonid meteor shower
see http://cantonbecker.com/retrograde for details…
Geminids
The final major meteor shower of every year (unless one surprises us!) is always the December Geminid shower, often producing 50 or more meteors per hour. It is a beloved shower, because, as a general rule, it’s either the August Perseids or the December Geminids that give us the most prolific display of the year. Best of all, the new moon guarantees a dark sky on the peak night of the Geminid shower (mid-evening December 13 until dawn December 14). But the nights on either side of the peak date should be good as well. Unlike many meteor showers, you can start watching the Geminids by 9 or 10 p.m. local time. The peak might be around 2 a.m. local time on these nights, because that’s when the shower’s radiant point is highest in the sky as seen around the world. With no moon to ruin the show, 2012 presents a most favorable year for watching the grand finale of the meteor showers. Best viewing of the Geminids will probably be from about 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. on December 14.
The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, respectively, in the sense that the length of time elapsed between sunrise and sunset on this day is a minimum for the year. Of course, daylight saving time means that the first Sunday in April has 23 hours and the last Sunday in October has 25 hours, but these human meddlings with the calendar and do not correspond to the actual number of daylight hours.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/WinterSolstice.html