The National Weather Service is predicting partly cloudy skies over Boston tonight, near-optimal conditions for viewing the Leonids meteor shower. The Washington Post is suggesting the shower to peak around 3a.m., with the moon “setting early enough in the evening to give sky gazers a dark opportunity to scout more shooting stars.”

NASA has indicated that the showers will be on display over North America. It should be mild yet beautiful with an average of 20-30 meteor per hour. Asia will see a brighter show. Meteors will streak across the sky at an unbelievable rate of 200-300 meteors per hour. This seems rather fitting as the Chinese were the ones who invented gunpowder and fireworks, though the Leonids will put on a more breathtaking show.

Check out this video from the 2001 Leonids meteor shower

Historically, the Leonids have been among the most spectacular meteor showers ever seen. Some recorded showers predicted upwards of thousands of meteors per hour, some as much as hundreds of thousands.

The name of the shower derives from the constellation Leo, the area in the sky through which the meteors pass at up to 71 km per second (roughly 158 mph). The Earth passes through the orbit of debris from the Tempel-Tuttle comet which has its own orbital period of every 33 years. The shower usually peaks around November 18, though in this case its tonight.

If you plan on viewing the shower tonight but the sky is too cloudy or you live in a dense metropolitan area like that of Greater Boston, fret not. The Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will offer a live Ustream telescope view of the skies over Huntsville, Ala. If are able to catch the phenomenon in action, be sure to take as many pictures or videos as you can and send them to us.

In the meantime, let us know if and where you plan on watching the Leonids, and where the most optimal sites in New England may be.