With the moon barely visible, the annual Draconid metor shower will put on a display of shooting stars the evenings of Oct. 8 and 9. 
 
 Shooting from the mouth of the northern constellation Draco the Dragon, the Draconid meteor shower will be most visible in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in the U.S., Canada, Europe and northern Asia. 
 
 The Draconid showers occur when the Earth’s orbit crosses path with that of Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, where debris from the comet burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. Michael Giacobini discovered the comet on December 20, 1900. 
 
 The waning crescent moon isn’t expected to rise until the morning, so the night’s sky should be plenty dark to view the meteor shower. Find a dark, open sky and plan to spend a few hours looking north for the showers. 

 This week, sky watchers will have a chance to spy languid meteors streaming from the mouth of a dragon. 
 
 The annual Draconid meteor shower -- named for its apparent source in the head of Draco, the dragon constellation -- is set to peak the night of Thursday Oct. 8 into Friday morning. 
 
 Draconid meteors are visible when Earth passes through a stream of dust from the Giacobini-Zinner comet. The showers are considered "occasional," explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. 
 
 "They are either in outburst, with a fair number of meteors, or are so few that the casual observer would not notice them," he told CBS News. 
 
 Rates this year are expected to be about 10 meteors per hour. Most of them will be faint, in part because the brightness of meteors is determined by their size and speed, and Draconids are among the slowest of all meteors, hitting the atmosphere at the comparatively leisurely pace of 40,000 mph. 
 
 Fortunately, the waning crescent moon will make conditions favorable for viewing. 
 
 Those in the Northern Hemisphere are best situated to see the show. Try to get away from bright city lights and orient yourself more or less northward. As a point of reference, the dragon constellation slithers its way through the Big and Little Dippers, but you only need to take in the breadth of the sky to see the show. (If you're in the Northeast, you may want to wrap yourself in a blanket.) 
 
 In October 2011, as many as 660 Draconids per hour streaked through the sky. The next outburst is projected for 2018, Cooke said.
– Anyone hoping to get a good look at this year's Draconid meteor shower should tune their eyes to the sky Thursday night. Though meteors should be visible in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere—including the US, Canada, Europe, and northern Asia, per Time—on Thursday and Friday evenings, the most meteors are likely to fall from the mouth of "dragon" constellation Draco between just before midnight on Thursday and predawn on Friday. If you want to get specific, experts predict the ideal time to watch is 1:40am EDT. Thanks to the shrinking crescent moon, skywatchers will have "a nearly perfect chance to see as many as two dozen shooting stars per hour" between the North Star and the star Vega at this peak time, reports National Geographic, noting those shooting stars will actually be tiny particles, some as small as a grain of sand, flying off comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner and burning up in our atmosphere. Planning to be sound asleep at 1:40am EDT? You should still be able to see about 10 meteors per hour at other times of the night, reports CBS News.