Since December, the mighty constellation Orion the Hunter has dominated the southern half of the Butler evening sky but times are a-changing.

Another bright and classic constellation perched high in the southeast evening sky, Leo the Lion, is pushing Orion and his posse of other bright winter stars and constellations toward the western horizon. You can see this push going on from night to night this month.

And this year Leo has some added muscle with the mighty planet Jupiter residing among its stars near his hindquarters. The largest planet in our solar system is also the brightest starlike object in the evening sky this spring. Actually it’s our Earth’s orbit around the sun that’s making this all happen.

As our world continues its annual journey around our home star we’re turning away from the direction of space with Orion and the other winter constellations and facing toward the stars in and around Leo.

Leo is not quite as flashy as Orion, but it’s still distinctive and one of the brighter constellations. Most people see it as a two-part constellation.

The right side is an easy to see backward question mark with the moderately bright star Regulus, the brightest star of Leo, marking the bottom dot of the query mark. It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see how the sickle of stars outlines the profile of a lion’s head, with Regulus marking the heart of the giant heavenly feline.

To the left of the lion’s bust is a triangle of moderately bright shiners that supposedly outline the lion’s derrière and tail.

Regulus, Leo’s brightest shiner, is certainly not in the upper echelon of bright stars in the night sky. In fact, Regulus is a Latin name that translates to the “little king” or “the prince.”

Astronomically, it’s not all that small of a star though. It’s nearly twice the diameter of our nearly million-mile-wide sun, and its interior nuclear fusion furnace is much more active than our sun.

In fact, the outer layer of Regulus has a temperature of at least 20,000 degrees, about twice as hot as our sun. That causes it to kick out 140 times more light than our home star. Regulus would be a whole lot brighter in our sky except that it’s 80 light years away, with just one light-year equaling nearly six trillion miles.

Denebola is the second brightest star of Leo at the tail of the celestial cat. The king of the planets, Jupiter, isn’t too far away from Regulus in the heavens right now. It’s not unusual to find planets in the vicinity of Leo the Lion.

Leo is one of 13 constellations in what is called the zodiac band. Because Earth and the rest of the planets orbit the sun in nearly the same geometric plane, they are all found along this band of constellations that also lies along this plane.

Leo the Lion also has another visitor this weekend. It’s the waxing gibbous moon, gradually passing through the lower side of the constellation this weekend.

In fact, Sunday the moon will be parked just to the lower right of Jupiter to make for one heck of a celestial combo. Pray for clear skies and don’t miss the show.

In most cultures Leo is depicted as a lion. Some of the earliest records we have of people making up constellation pictures come from ancient Sumerian culture, located in present day Iraq. Sketches of Leo the Lion have shown up in caves in that area.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Leo the Lion was a huge legendary beast that terrorized the countryside, annihilating and devouring anything in its path. Many tried to bring down the ferocious giant lion and wound up in its digestive system instead, but the mighty hero Hercules was the end of the line for Leo.

Hercules is actually depicted in a nearby summer constellation that I’ll feature in the coming weeks. The tale of Hercules the hero is quite a story.

Other cultures have much different interpretations of the group of stars we see as Leo the Lion. Egyptians see Leo as their famous Sphinx, a strange mythological figure made up of the body of a recumbent lion with a human head.

The constellation Egyptians saw as the Sphinx was very important to them because in ancient times, when the sun passed into the stars of the Sphinx, that was the seasonal sign of summer that the life-giving Nile River was about to go into its annual flood.

In Peru, the stars of Leo are supposed to picture a puma pouncing on its prey. In China Leo’s a zodiacal horse. Christian cultures in the Middle Ages saw Leo the Lion as a reminder of the Biblical story of the prophet Daniel being thrown into a den of lions for his beliefs.

Enjoy Jupiter and the great celestial feline of the spring evening sky!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul and is author of the book, “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at www.adventurepublications.net.