It's a celestial event that has astronomers around the world talking, but the best of the Draconid meteor shower occurs Saturday afternoon over North America -- and will be invisible to the naked eye.

While Europe will catch a peak of up to 600 blazing meteors an hour, Canadians will have to settle for the tail end of the shower after sunset when about 30 meteors an hour will cross the northwest sky above the Big Dipper.

But even with clear skies away from bright city lights, an almost full moon will obscure many of the tiny dust fragments as they ignite across the sky at a relatively slow speed of 20 kilometres a second.

"It's leftover material from a comet," astronomy expert Andrew Fazekas told CTV News Channel. The creator of http://www.thenightskyguy.com said the Draconid shower is usually a "humdrum" affair with only about 10 meteors an hour most years.

Every year in early October, the Earth passes through the dust left behind by the Giacobini-Zinner Comet. The comet itself passes through our solar system every six and a half years.