A SPECTACULAR meteor shower is expected in the skies over the region tonight.
Thousands of multicoloured shooting stars will be seen from 11pm to 2am as the earths atmosphere passes through the tail debris of the Swift-Tuttle comet.
The skies are predicted to be clear at that time providing for the best views of the meteor shower, unless there is excessive light pollution.
The shooting stars, which will be seen predominantly in the eastern part of the sky will be travelling at speeds of up to 135,000mph.
Alan Kennedy of Durham Astronomical Society said: "At the maximum there will be something like 200 meteors an hour.
"They tend to come in bursts, you might stand for 15 to 20 minutes and not see anything before a lot come along.
"The light comes from them as they ionise the atmosphere.
"Most of them are about the size of a grain of sand, but the really big ones which light up the sky are about the size of a marble."
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