There's nothing like a cool shower on a warm August night. At least for comet-watchers.

The year's most vivid meteor shower, the Perseid, which runs throughout August, peaks on Monday and Tuesday nights. The "shooting stars" are flaring away as you read this, but are visible only at night, especially between 10:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m.

And they're not as big as they appear. "The particles you're looking at are between 1/10,000th and 1/100,000th of an inch," said Lawrence Rudnick, a University of Minnesota professor of astrophysics. "They're like a speck of dust. If you were holding it in your hand, you wouldn't see it."

The particles light up the sky every August as the Earth passes through the debris stream from Comet Swift-Tuttle. "It's like a motorcyclist running into a swarm of bugs," said Minneapolis Community and Technical College astronomy professor Parke Kunkle.

They burst into the atmosphere at 132,000 miles per hour, about 37 miles per second, before disintegrating. Because they dissolve, these bits of dust don't become part of the thousands of tons of "space dust" that settle on Earth's surface every year, Rudnick said.

If you want to catch a falling star, perhaps as many as 100 per hour, get away from the cities and other brightly lighted areas. A good gauge, according to Rudnick: "If you can see the Little Dipper, it's dark enough. You're going to have a good show," he said. (For help locating the Little Dipper, go to www.startribune.com/a2419.)

But don't focus on the Little Dipper or any of the constellations, including the one that gives the shower its name. "If you analyze the streaks, you see that they all point back to Perseus," Rudnick said, "but you don't want to be looking at Perseus."

And leave the gadgets at home. "You'll miss the whole show." Rudnick said. "No telescope, no binoculars. Just get out there and look up."