Being a dad, I think the same way a lot of dads do. We get short-changed.

Mother's Day gets a lot more press and hype, and mom usually gets better stuff on her day than we get on our day.

OK, I'm whining here a bit, but it is true. So why not show your dad what a great guy he is by promising him the moon and the stars, and then throwing in five planets while you're at it.

The stars and moon part of the gift is easy. As soon as it's dark enough, around 10:30 p.m. or so, you can show him the stars, and without forking out $50 or $60 to some company to "semi officially" name a star. Just do it yourself.

Pick any star you see and call that star by your dad's name. Oh sure, that star has another official astronomical name, but as far as your dad and you are concerned, that's his star.

Get my book or one of the monthly star maps on my Web site and determine what constellation your dad's star is in to keep up with its nightly and seasonal movements.

The moon part of your gift to Dad is an easy one, especially this week since we have our official first full moon of summer. There's nothing quite as nice as strolling under a moonlit sky on a warm summer evening.

Now all that moonlight is sure to louse up intricate stargazing, so the star you pick out for your dad this week better be a bright one!

Now how about those five planets? Well, four of them can easily be found this week in the evening. The easiest to see is Jupiter.

Just look for the bright "star" you can see in the southwestern sky and that's it, the biggest planet in our solar system.

If Jupiter were a hollow sphere you could fill it up with roughly 1,300 of our Earth. With a small telescope or even a pair of binoculars see if you spot at least some of the cloud bands that stripe across Jupiter as well as some of those little tiny stars on either side of it that are its biggest moons.

There are three more planets you can see in the early evening and for the next couple of weeks they will even do a dance for your dad.About 9:30 to 10 p.m., toward the end of evening twilight, look in the low northwestern horizon. You'll need a flat horizon with a very low tree line to see it, but it will definitely be worth it.The brightest "star" you'll see hugging the horizon is the planet Venus. Just to the upper left of Venus will be Saturn, and just to the lower left of Venus will be Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.On this particular evening these planets form a little diagonal line, but over the course of this week they'll form a tight little conjunction. You could almost call it a planet cluster.As we move in our orbit around the sun and those three planets also migrate in their respective tracks around the sun, Venus, Mercury and Saturn will all appear within a degree and a half of each other in the sky, and it should make for a spectacular sight.Don't miss it. It will seem like they're on top of each other, although physically they are nowhere near each other. They just happen to be in the same direction from our earthly view.Now what about the fifth planet you promised your dad? That would be Mars.My suggestion with Mars is that you make that an IOU It won't rise until after 1:30 a.m., and it's not all that close to Earth right now. Next November, though, Mars will rise at sunset and be the brightest object in the sky, only 43 million miles from Earth, the closest it's been in more than two years.<B><I>Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio on Minneapolis. He is the author of "Pennsylvania Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com</I></B>