The Perseid meteor shower will be at its best the next couple of nights. Unfortunately, the gibbous Moon will be in the sky during the best hours for meteor watching. That will spoil the view of all but the brightest meteors.
Weekly Stargazing Tips
Provided by StarDate.org. Unless otherwise specified, viewing times are local time regardless of time zone, and are good for the entire Lower 48 states (and, generally, for Alaska and Hawaii).
August 10: Perseid Meteors
August 11: Moon and Saturn
The planet Saturn appears quite close to the Moon tonight. It looks like a bright star to the lower left of the Moon as they climb into good view, by about 11 p.m. A small telescope will reveal Titan, Saturn's largest, which looks like a tiny star close to the planet.
August 12: Ophiuchus
Ophiuchus passes across the south on summer evenings. The constellation represented the god of medicine. Its stars are faint. Under a dark sky, they form a pattern that resembles a coffee urn. It's upright in early evening, but on its side later on.
August 13: Barnard 68
Barnard 68 is one of the darkest objects in our part of the galaxy. It's a small cloud that absorbs the light of the stars behind it, so it looks like a "hole" in the Milky Way. It's in Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, which is in the southern sky at nightfall.
August 14: Ophiuchus Clusters
In 1764, Charles Messier was a star-cluster-discovering machine. He found five globular clusters in Ophiuchus. He cataloged them as Messier 9, 10, 12, 14, and 19. They are scattered across the large constellation, and are visible through binoculars.
August 15: Last-Quarter Moon
The Moon will be at last quarter tonight as it lines up at a right angle to the Sun in Earth's sky. After that it will enter the "waning crescent" phase, growing thinner by the day as it loops toward the Sun.
August 16: Dog Days
Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is climbing into view in the southeast at dawn. It is the brightest star of Canis Major, the big dog, so it's known as the Dog Star. In ancient times, its first dawn showing ushered in the Dog Days of summer.