The annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its maximum activity from late Tuesday night into the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, 12–13 August, offering sky-watchers across much of the Northern Hemisphere a chance to see one of the year’s best celestial displays. Under dark, moonless skies the shower can produce 50 to 100 meteors an hour, but this year a waning gibbous Moon—about 84 % illuminated—is expected to slash visible rates to roughly 10–20 meteors per hour, according to NASA and the American Meteor Society. The Perseids are created when Earth ploughs through dust and ice left by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. The shower remains active until 23 August, and astronomers recommend viewing from rural areas after midnight, allowing eyes to adjust and keeping the bright Moon out of direct sight for the best chances of spotting the faster, brighter fireballs. This year’s peak coincides with a striking planetary backdrop: Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets, passed within about 0.9 degrees of each other before dawn on 12 August and will remain less than two degrees apart for several days. The pairing anchors a wider pre-dawn “planet parade” that will add Saturn high in the south and, nearer the horizon, Mercury later in the week, giving early risers a second reason to look up.