If you enjoy cosmic phenomena, you may want to stay up a bit late tonight. This evening and the next two days will mark the return of the Perseid meteor shower. The frequency of falling stars varies from year to year, but some estimates say there may be as many as 100 meteors per hour at the peak. You can read a detailed report on the BBC website.

We happen to be blessed with clear skies in southern Illinois this evening, as well no visible moon, both of which make for better viewing conditions.

You may also want to check out the free and excellent application Stellarium (available for Mac, Linux, and Windows). Among other things it will help you to visualize where to look, since it can show you in real time the position of constellations in the sky where you are, as well as planets, etc. (You need to input your latitude and longitude coordinates to make that work, of course. I believe it also includes a built-in database of major cities.) It is a very beautiful application, even if you have little or only casual interest in star gazing.