Perseid Meteor Shower

All meteor showers are not created equally, and even the better ones — like the Perseid meteor shower — don't always put on a good show.
This weekend, however, the Perseids are primed for one of their best performances in recent years, thanks to the phase of the moon, astronomy experts say.
The moon will be going through its darkest phase — known as the new moon — on Aug. 11, which is perfect timing for the peak period of the Perseid meteor shower on the nights of Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, said Amie Gallagher, director of the planetarium at Raritan Valley Community College in Somerset County.
With very little moon light spoiling the view, star gazers in dark locations should be able to see as many as 60 to 70 meteors zipping across the sky each hour, Gallagher said.

Gallagher's best advice for anyone who wants to see a bunch of shooting stars on a warm summer night is this: "The darker the location, the better."
For ideal viewing, try to find a park or open area in a rural place, as far away as possible from the glare of city lights. And timing plays a role as well.
"The best time to see any meteor shower is after midnight," Gallagher noted, "because that's when the part of the earth that you are on is moving into the stream of meteors."

The Perseid meteors are tiny pieces of debris from the tail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. Basically, the comet moves around the sun and leaves a trail of debris, and every August the earth moves through the debris.
Us folks on earth can see some of the debris, which looks like shooting stars. Because the earth rotates, the bulk of our planet misses most of the comet debris before midnight, Gallagher noted.
That's why the best time to view the Perseid meteor shower is after midnight, any time until dawn. That's when you'll see the most shooting stars, and perhaps some larger and brighter shooting stars, known as fireballs.

Although meteors might look big when they're shooting across the night sky, most of them are only about the size of a fingernail, Gallaher noted. The larger meteors — the ones that look like fireballs — are about the size of a human fist.

All those tiny pieces of comet debris move so rapidly that they heat up and illuminate the air around them, creating the streak of light that we see, and admire, from earth.

https://www.nj.com/weather/index.ssf/2018/08/perseid_meteor_shower_2018_when_to_see_where_to_vi.html#incart_river_index