Butler skies will be heavily congested this week and it will be more than just ghosts, goblins and beauty-challenged, wart-enhanced babes on brooms. Higher up in the heavens there will be a lot of action as well.

First of all, we have the famous — or some would say infamous — Pleiades star cluster, also known as the "Seven Little Sisters," which resembles a tiny Big Dipper. This time of year, it's also referred to as the "Halloween Cluster" because it rises in the east early in the evening and climbs high in the sky around the midnight hour.

Astronomically, the Pleiades is actually a group of more than 100 young stars more than 410 light years away that was born together out of a huge cloud of hydrogen gas 100 million years ago. By the way, if you're new to this column, just 1 light year equals nearly 6 trillion miles!

Many ancient people worshipped and also feared the Pleiades because the cluster was associated with death, and when it rose high in the sky around midnight this time of year, it was thought it was the appropriate time to honor the dead.

Some cultures, such as the early Egyptians, believed whenever the Pleiades reached its zenith in the sky, natural disasters and manufactured ones like war could more easily occur.

There also is a minor meteor shower starting up later this haunted week called the Taurids. They actually peak out in early November, but they're getting going this week.

The Earth, in its path around the sun, is running into a fairly sparse debris trail left behind by Comet Encke. Most of this debris is no bigger than pebble size, but when the particles slam into our atmosphere at more than 65,000 mph, they really light up the sky.

You probably won't see many of them while you're taking the kids out trick-or-treating, though. They're best seen after midnight originating from the constellation Taurus the Bull, but be careful after midnight because that's when it can really get spooky around Halloween!

Another big show in the Halloween evening skies this week will be the bright planets Jupiter and Venus.

Toward the end of evening twilight, around 6:30 to 7 p.m., look in the low southwest corner of the sky, and you should see two bright starlike luminaries. The brighter one on the lower right, close to the horizon, is Venus.

On the upper left is the not-quite-as-bright Jupiter, which actually has graced our evening skies throughout the summer and early autumn.

Venus is a newcomer to the evening sky. Neither planet will thrill or chill you all that much through a telescope since they're so low in the sky. Their light has to cut through so much more of our blurring atmosphere. You can see up to four of Jupiter's largest moons depending on where they are around the monster planet. You also might notice Venus is football shaped because of the angle of the Earth, Sun and Venus.

The story with these two planets is they are on a collision course, at least from our viewpoint on Earth. The two planets will come nowhere near each other physically, but they will come very close to each other in our evening sky during the coming weeks. That's because of the complex celestial mechanics involving the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as our own orbit around the sun.

Every chance you get, watch Venus and Jupiter draw closer and closer to each other. In the last days of November and the first few days of December, they will be in a tight celestial hug, only two degrees apart, or about four full moon widths from each other. It should be quite a sight, and I'll be sure to gently nag you about this as it gets closer.

On Friday, Halloween night, there will be something really special to gaze upon. Right around 6:30 p.m., see if you can spot a very thin crescent moon just to the lower right of Venus.

If you're visibility is really good, see if you spot the moderately bright reddish star Antares just to the right of the moon. You'll have to look just above the horizon to see it. You'll need a low, flat, treeless horizon to really see it, and whatever you do, don't let a black cat jump between you and your view of the moon and Venus. That could be a very bad and spooky thing. Happy Halloween!

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