You've got a great chance to see the planet George this week in our Pennsylvania skies, as it has a very close celestial hug with the ultra bright planet Venus.

Venus is by far the brightest starlike object in the sky right now. Just gaze to the southwestern skies in the early evening and you can't miss it!

As soon as evening twilight is over, take that telescope you got for Christmas, or even a cheap pair of binoculars and scan the heavens only three degrees below and slightly to the right of Venus.

Three degrees is about the width of three of your fingers held out at arm's length. Look for a blueish-green dot and that's it: the planet George.

The planet George will be hanging just below and to the right of Venus all this week, and on Friday night the new crescent moon will join Venus and George as you see in the diagram.

Even though George and Venus appear to be in a close embrace in our evening sky this week, they're actually nowhere near each other physically.

Venus is nearing its closest approach to the Earth at just under 56 million miles. Planet George, however, is more than 1.9 billion miles away, about as far away as it ever gets from our spaceship Earth.

Before you think I've totally lost my celestial marbles, I have to tell you that planet George was the original name given to the planet we now know as Uranus, the seventh planet out from the sun.

Uranus was discovered by the famous German born British astronomer William Herschel on March 13th, 1781. Previous to his discovery, Saturn was considered the most distant planet in our solar system.

Herschel was a brilliant mathematician and composer, as well as a brilliant astronomer who constructed more than 400 telescopes, including a huge 40-foot telescope, the biggest one in the world at the time.

He was also a very loyal subject of British King George III, so he named his new planet George in the king's honor.

Not only was he fond of King George, but the monarch provided funding for all of his astronomical adventures.

The name George for Herschel's new planet didn't fly for too long in the rest of astronomical world, however, and eventually the name of the planet was changed to Uranus, after the Greek god who was the grandfather of Zeus, king of the gods.

By the way, the proper pronunciation of Uranus is YOUR-uh-nus, not your-RAIN-nus. When it's mispronounced, it always gets giggles from at least some school kids.

Uranus is one of the large gaseous giant planets, mainly made up of hydrogen and helium, but it also has water, ammonia and methane which give it a bluish appearance.

It's more than 31,000 miles in diameter, about four times the diameter of Earth. It rotates on its axis much faster than the Earth, once every 17.5 hours, and what's really weird is that the axis of rotation is tilted on its side.

Uranus' north and south poles are located where the equators are located on the other planets in our solar system, on the same plane as its orbital path around the sun. By the way, it takes Uranus 84 Earth years to make just one circuit around the Sun.

To be honest, Uranus isn't going to wow you even with a moderate to large telescope. About the most you'll even see is a blueish green dot, but it is something to see such a distant planet and one that was originally named George.

You'll also notice through your telescope that Venus is in the shape of a half moon. That's because only half of the sunlit side of Venus is facing the Earth now.

The planets Venus and Mercury both orbit the sun within Earth's orbit and they go through phase-shape changes just like Earth's moon.

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.