The Perseids — considered by many to be the best meteor shower of the year — are close to peaking.

The astronomical spectacle is expected to be most visible from the Northern Hemisphere Aug. 11-12, according to Space.com. For the best views, you’ll want to head out overnight, after the moon sets — just before midnight in the Baltimore area.

Then look to the northeast sky, toward the constellation Perseus (hence the name The Perseids). That’s the meteor shower’s radiant, or where it will appear to come from. Once your eyes adjust to the night sky, NASA says you could see up to 100 meteors each hour.

The Perseids often leave long “wakes” of colorful light as they travel, and are also known for their large fireballs that are brighter than the meteor streaks, NASA says on its website.

The actual source of the fiery display is a trail of debris left behind from the tail of the comet Swift-Tuttle. While the large comet is long gone, it’s debris path is big enough for Earth to pass through each year.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the forecast for Aug. 11-12 in Baltimore is mostly sunny with some clouds Sunday night. Overnight temperatures could drop as low as 69 degrees in the days leading up to the peak of the shower, according to the National Weather Service, creating comfortable viewing conditions.

And the shower is viewable around 10 days before and after the peak, so one cloudy night doesn’t completely ruin your chances of seeing the show.

As with any celestial event, to get the best viewing experience, you’ll want to get somewhere with less light pollution than downtown Baltimore.

In Central Maryland, that’s a bit of a tough order, since so much of the region is developed. The entire I-95 corridor between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., is too bright at night to see much of anything, according to a map published by Dark Site Finder.

To escape the lights from Baltimore, you may want to consider driving north toward Sparks, in Baltimore County. You could also drive west toward Deep Creek Lake, or onto the Eastern Shore.

This is a developing story.