The night between August 13 and 14, and the Moon is one stride nearer to its victim –
– the Sun, which it intends to smother just one week from now. Be ready with your pots and pans to drive the demon off!
As we said, you can get up one hour later to see this. Actually, you don’t have to get up at 1 a.m.; you could be out several hours later and see the Moon, but it would be higher from the horizon and thus inconvenient for my diagram.
The Last Quarter moment, when the Moon is 90° from the Sun and half illuminated, comes on Aug. 15 at 1:16 Universal Time.
Some Perseid meteors may still be seen, a day and a half after their peak. Their approximate span of activity is said to be from July 17 to Aug. 24, though that is rather like saying that an untidy pile of grains is two feet wide.