The 66 or so constellations that we see during the course of the year in Pennsylvania are mainly a collection of animals, men and gods. There are very few women in the celestial sphere. In fact, there are only two that we can see from the Northern Hemisphere; Cassiopeia the Queen and Virgo the Virgin.

Now I know you've seen Cassiopeia before, although you may not have known what you were stargazing at. Cassiopeia is the bright "W" that you see in the northern sky every single night as it makes a tight circle around Polaris, the North Star, every 24 hours. This time of year look for the "W" in the low northern sky. You can't miss it. It's as bright as the Big Dipper.

The "W" outlines the throne that Queen Cassiopeia is tied into because she boasted that she was more beautiful than Hera, the queen of all the gods. Hera had her tied to the throne and tossed into the sky so Cassiopeia could show her "beauty" to everyone on Earth.

As she spins around the North Star, sometimes she's lying on her back, as she is now. But in the early winter when the "W" is upside down, Cassiopeia is hanging by the ropes! It's not a good idea to tick off the queen of the gods!

The other lady of the night skies is not so prominent. You have to work a little to see Virgo, the Virgin. It's a large but faint constellation that you really need to be away from city lights to see.

It's what I call a stargazing "deep track," although this summer it's a little easier to find because it's just to the upper right of the bright planet Jupiter in the midsouthern sky. Jupiter is the brightest starlike object in the sky right now.

How this faint collection of stars about halfway up in the southwestern sky is supposed to be the goddess of fertility is a mystery to me. It only has one bright star, Spica, and the rest of the stars are so faint that there's no way you can see them in the lights of the city, even in the outer suburbs. You need to be out in the countryside, armed with patience!

Spica, the only really bright star in Virgo, is a blue giant star about 263 light-years, or 1519 trillion miles, away from Earth. It's 10 times as massive and over five times larger than our home star the sun, with a girth of almost 8.5 million miles. Spica is also a lot hotter than our sun, with a surface temperature well over 30,000 degrees F. Spica is also moving away from us at a speed of 2,000 miles an hour, although no farewell parties are planned for Spica anytime soon.

Despite its tremendous fleeing speed, Spica will still adorn our spring and summer heavens for many evenings to come.

In many cultures, including the Greeks and Egyptians, Virgo the Virgin represents the goddess of fertility. She holds in her hand a shaft of wheat. In fact, farmers took the first sighting of Virgo with Spica as a cue to start their spring planting. When she leaves the evening sky four to five months later, the growing season is over. According to the mythology, that's when Virgo leaves the land of the living and starts her annual search in the underworld for slain husband Tammuz.

The grand lady of the night sky is truly a loyal lover!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio on Minneapolis and author of the new book. "Pennsylvania Starwatch", available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.