For the next few days it's worth looking out for what is generally regarded as the best meteor shower of the year: the Perseids.
Meteors, or 'shooting stars', are produced when small pieces of rock enter the upper atmosphere and burn up due to friction with the air. The material responsible for the numerous annual showers is cometary debris which, like its comet of origin, travels around the Sun in an orbit that the Earth regularly intercepts. In the case of the Perseids, the debris field is associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. Meteor showers appear to originate in a certain part of the sky known as the radiant: for the Perseids this is in the region of the constellation Perseus, hence the name. The peak of the shower - when it's occasionally possible to see a meteor every second - is on the night of 12th / 13th August. Just look towards the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia and, if you have dark skies you should see a few!
Here are a couple of time-lapse images I took last night that show meteors as well as the Andromeda Galaxy, M31 and the Milky Way.
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