NASA/Bill Ingalls
Choose a spot away from city lights, preferably with wide open skies. Check the weather before you go, as clouds could ruin your view.
Bring a picnic blanket or a reclining lawn chair. Staring directly upward with no neck support becomes uncomfortable more quickly than you might think.
Once the moon sets, around midnight, the sky will be much darker and you’ll be primely positioned to see the most meteors. Lay back, give your eyes 20 minutes to adjust to the dark, and enjoy the show.
Resist the temptation to look at your phone — it could undo all the time you’ve spent adjusting your eyes to the dark.
Catch a Jupiter-Mars conjunction
Jupiter and Mars are creeping close together in the sky, and you can see them if you stay up late enough.
In the early morning hours, starting around 2 a.m., look to the east and turn slightly toward the north. Mars and Jupiter will rise side-by-side between the horns of Taurus, the bull-shaped constellation. They’ll appear as two bright stars, with Mars having a reddish hue.
If you don’t have a keen eye for constellations, you can find Taurus, Mars, and Jupiter using a phone app like Sky Safari ($4.99 in the App Store) or a website like Stellarium (free).
Though the two planets will be visible together for days, including over this weekend, the conjunction peaks in the early morning hours of August 14.
At that point, you could stretch your arm out and easily cover both planets with your pinky finger, according to Sky & Telescope, a publication of the American Astronomical Society. That’s how close Jupiter and Mars will appear.
Out in space, of course, the planets will still be hundreds of millions of miles apart.
Watch the meteor shower live online
If you can’t get out of the city, you can watch a live broadcast of the Perseids.
The Virtual Telescope Project will have an online livestream from its all-sky camera in Manciano, Italy, which has some of the country’s darkest skies, on Sunday and Monday starting at 9 p.m. ET.