KEEN sky gazers in Essex will be treated to a wonderous display of shooting stars tonight as the Earth passes through the remaining dust left by Halley’s comet.

The Eta Aquariid meteor shower is expected to peak in the early hours of Saturday, May 6 with up to 50 meteors hourly and will be visible from midnight until dawn.

Halley’s Comet is associated with this event which is visible from Earth around once every 76 years.

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This shower is ideal for the Southern Hemisphere, and will appear low in the sky for northerly latitudes, such as the UK, in the early predawn hours.

However, it should still be possible to see the shower in the eastern sky.

Eta Aquariid gets its name from the constellation in the night sky that it appears to radiate from, the Aquarius constellation.

Instead of being called the Aquirid meteor shower, the name is derived from one of the stars of this constellation, Eta Aquirii.

The Eta Aquariid is one of two meteor showers created by debris from Comet Halley.

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The other is the Orionid meteor shower which is visible in October.

Although the meteors will be visible with the naked eye, keen star gazers are advised to find a dark area of sky – away from street lights and other sources of light pollution – and allow their eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

While the Eta Aquariid shower will peak on Saturday, it will continue until May 28.

Meteors are pieces of debris, sometimes as small as a grain of sand, that enter Earth’s atmosphere at speeds of up to 70 kilometres per second, vaporising and causing the streaks of light that delight skygazers.