Stargazers will get the chance to spot a shooting star approximately once per minute as the annual Perseid meteor shower peaks over the next two nights.

This year's meteor shower is not exceptional, but clear skies are forecast, which makes skywatching easier, astronomy and astrophysics professor Tomaž Zwitter has told the Slovenian Press Agency.

"The Perseids are best observed in the second half of the night once the moon goes down. We will have a clear sky without moonlight, which is optimal for meteor watching," said Zwitter, adding that there will be around one meteor visible per minute.

These are mostly very small meteors, the size of a grain of sand, but they are very fast, entering Earth's atmosphere at the speed of nearly 60 km/s, Zwitter said.

The Perseids are a result of comet Swift-Tuttle, which left a stream of debris in its wake and is currently still circling the Sun. The meteor shower, named after the constellation Perseus, which appears to be their starting point, can be spotted in the night sky every summer when the Earth travels through Swift-Tuttle's orbit.

Another interesting phenomenon will be visible on 15 August when Jupiter and Mars appear to be less than half a degree apart on the night sky. This phenomenon, called conjunction, will be visible to the naked eye high above the eastern horizon, Zwitter said.