Annual meteor shower will come to the sky this week

If you wish on a star this week, it probably won't come true.

For a very good reason - you're most likely looking at a meteor.

The annual Perseid Meteor Shower will be on display in the evening skies of Aug. 10 through 14. The sprinkle of lights is the result of debris released from the comet Swift-Tuttle which passed Earth in 1992. Most of the particles of debris ignited by the atmosphere are no larger than a grain of sand.

The best views of the shower is in dark skies, away from city lights.

"Ideally, you want to get about 30 miles out of town to have the best chance of seeing the shower," said Michael L. Terenzoni, planetarium technician at the University of Arizona's Flandrau Science Center.

Suggested spots for viewing the shower:

• The east end of Speedway at Saguaro National Monument East

• Tucson Mountains to the west

• Catalina State Park to the north.

Barring cloudy skies, the best chances to see the shower are Aug. 12, before 10:30 p.m. and Aug. 13, before 11:30 p.m.

Terenzoni said viewers who get to dark skies can expect to see 10 to 30 meteors every hour.