Sky & Telescope magazine: http://www.skyandtelescope.com
Prepare for the Perseids
The Perseid meteor shower peaks on the new-Moon night of Sunday–Monday, August 12–13, but it’s strong for several nights before and after that. On any given night, activity starts slowly in the evening and increases steadily to the hours before dawn.
The meteor rate increases to roughly 30 per hour in the predawn hours on Saturday, 45 per hour on Sunday morning, and 80 per hour before the sky starts to get light on Monday morning. That’s for a single observer at a dark-sky site in the north temperate latitudes.