Keep an eye to the skies later this week. A rare and major meteor shower is expected to occur Friday night into early Saturday morning.

The Camelopardalids meteor shower will peak early Saturday morning, between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. EDT, according to NASA. The shower could put on a quite a show.

The meteor shower will happen when Earth passes through dust that was ejected from comet 209P/LINEAR in the 1800s, according to NASA.

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This meteor shower is a first because Earth has never run into the debris from this particular comet, a faint comet from the Jupiter family that orbits the sun every five years and was discovered in 2004, NASA says.

Scientists aren't sure what the shower will look like or how active it will be, said Bill Cooke, lead for NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

“Some forecasters have predicted a meteor storm of more than 200 meteors per hour,” Cooke said.

For best viewing conditions, travel to rural areas away from city lights and look to the northern sky.

According to Jon Erdman, meteorologist with weather.com, the best weather for viewing Friday night will be from the western Great Lakes and Upper Midwest to the Deep South and Florida.

Lingering thunderstorms in the Plains from Nebraska to west Texas and New Mexico may now allow for good viewing in spots, Erdman said.

Some clouds may also obscure the meteor shower in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, he said, but viewing in California and most of the Desert Southwest should be fine.

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