Those looking skywards on August 12 could see a lot more activity than normal as the Earth is subjected to its annual Perseids meteor shower.

The phenomena occurs every year as the Earth passes through debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet, resulting in up to 100 meteors an hour raining down as the small particles collide with and burn up in the atmosphere.

Those interested in viewing the phenomena should move out of urban areas where street and other lighting makes seeing the celestial light-show difficult.

Those unable to see the shower can turn to Twitter for an online meteor watch organised by the Newbury Astronomical Society and the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

Richard Fleet, president of the society, said: “We realised early on that what people want are images of the night sky so we used our array of telescopes and cameras to provide a constant stream of pictures which we uploaded straight to Twitter.”

The Twitter feed of images will commence at 2130BST (2030 UTC) on August 11 and continue through to the evening of August 12 and people can follow the show by searching for the #Meteorwatch.

Perseids meteor shower videos