The Bay Area is in for a treat this week as the meteor shower considered the best of the year by NASA scientists is expected to peak Wednesday night.
The Perseid meteor shower will peak between 11 p.m. Wednesday and 3 a.m. Thursday, according to the Oakland-based Chabot Space & Science Center. Stargazers can expect to see up to 100 meteors per hour.
“The Moon will set early in the evening on the 11th, so we will have dark skies and potentially very good viewing conditions,” Gerald McKeegan, an astromer with the Chabot Space & Science Center, wrote in a blog post.
The Perseids are active between July 14 and Aug. 24 and peak in mid-August at night during warm conditions, according to NASA. They are created by small pieces of space debris — dust, rocky grains and pebbles — from the Swift-Tuttle comet, which takes 133 years to rotate around the sun once.
The debris then creates a particle stream that also orbits the sun.
“As those particles enter and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, we experience a meteor shower,” wrote McKeegan.
You won’t need a telescope or binoculars to watch the shooting stars. McKeegan said all you need to do is find a clear sky away from city lights.
If you can, McKeegan recommended grabbing a blanket and lying down in a grassy field on a mountaintop for some of the best views.
Jessica Flores is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jessica.flores@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jesssmflores