It's Shooting-Star Time! How to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower

It's almost time for one of the best nighttime celestial shows of the year — the Perseid meteor shower, a spectacular array of shooting stars that is expected to peak late Thursday night and early Friday morning (Aug. 11 and 12). Even better, skywatchers don't need any special equipment to watch the Perseids, said Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. "All you've got to do is go outside, find a nice dark spot, lie flat on y