THE annual Perseid meteor shower peaked last Monday night but the shower will continue for another week or so, meaning we'll still be able to see more shooting stars than usual during that time, writes STUART ATKINSON.
So, any clear night in the next week or so (stop laughing!) head out after midnight, look up, and wait - sooner or later you'll see a meteor skip across the sky. 
If you don't manage to see any Perseids don't worry, there are several more showers between now and year's end (and a couple are better than the often over-hyped Perseids!)
This is a great time of year to see the Milky Way, but if you want to see it you will need to be in the right place at the right time. 
The ideal place is 'somewhere out in the countryside, well away away from light pollution' because the misty star-clouds of the Milky Way are so faint that they're drowned out by streetlights, security lights and floodlights - so you've absolutely no chance of seeing the Milky Way from the north end of Kendal, which is now lit up like an oil rig. The right time is 'after midnight' because that's when the sky is finally dark enough for the Milky Way to be visible.
From an out of town dark sky location you'll see the Milky Way looking, to the naked eye, like a wide, faint, misty vapour trail cutting the sky in half. Its brightest areas run from overhead down to the southern horizon, so make sure you have a clear view in that direction. 
If you have binoculars they'll show you the Milky Way is made up of thousands, millions of stars, like clouds of pollen grains - a lovely sight