Despite the warmer weather, summer stargazing in Pennsylvania has its challenges, like late sunsets, mosquitoes and humidity that can muddy up clear skies.

That's especially the case when there is any kind of urban lighting. The moisture in the air can really spread out city lights and turn a clear sky into a milky sky. Moonlight also adds to the unwanted sky glow. That's why it's such a treat to take a road trip out into the countryside for some summer stargazing.

This coming week is actually a pretty good time to plan for such a venture because the moon isn't too big in the sky yet and there's some good stargazing to be had.

I guarantee this will be a treat you'll remember for a long time, no matter if you're by yourself or with family or friends.

Bring the blankets, bug juice, binoculars, star charts, snacks and beverages, and be prepared to sleep in the next morning. It will be a great show, but it also will be a late show. Even better, turn this into an overnight campout!

So there you are, gazing into the summer heavens. How many stars can you see with your naked eye?

Conventional astronomy textbooks say you can see about 3,000 stars with the naked eye, but I'm sure there's a lot more than that. Warning, do not try to count them! You'll fall asleep for sure, and your show will be over.

You can't help but notice the bright band of milky light that bisects the sky from north to south like a bold artist's stroke.

You might have been taught at an early age the band is the Milky Way galaxy. While that's certainly true, what you have to realize is every single star you see anytime, including the sun, are all members of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. That artist's band across the sky is just the thickest part.

If you could jump into a magical spaceship and fling yourself out and away from the Milky Way, what you would see in your rearview mirror is a group of around a half trillion stars in the shape of a giant CD, broken up into spiral arms with a large hump in the middle.

The Milky Way is a little more than 100,000 light-years in diameter and 10,000 light-years thick, with one light-year equal to about 6 trillion miles. Our sun is about 60,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy in one of the arms.

When you see that milky band of light across the sky as you gaze from your blankets or lawn chairs, you are looking edgewise into our galaxy. All of the stars we see obediently orbit around the center of the Milky Way. Our sun takes more than 200 million years to make one circuit.

In case you're wondering, the center of the Milky Way lays in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius the Archer, more commonly known by its nickname "the teapot" because that's what it really looks like. See if you can find that in the low southern sky.

The Milky Way band is not really all that much brighter around the teapot, because there is a lot of dark interstellar gas and dust that blocks the "hump" at our galaxy's center. It's been said that if we could see the Milky Way's central region unobstructed, that area of the sky would be much brighter than a full moon!

Lie back on the ground and just roll your eyes all across the sky and especially around the Milky Way band. With just a pair of binoculars, you'll see all kinds of celestial treasures like bright nebulae clouds, star clusters and dark rifts. You might even see a few human-made satellites rolling across the heavens.

As an added bonus, if you have binoculars or a small telescope, see if you can spot the great Hercules globular cluster, otherwise known as M13 by astronomers. It's located in the fairly faint constellation Hercules the Hero.

It shouldn't be too hard to find since it's nearly overhead between 10 and 11 p.m. The best thing to do is face due south, raise your head to the overhead zenith and look just to the right of the zenith for four moderately bright stars that make up a trapezoid.

This makes up the midsection of the constellation Hercules. Scan your binoculars or telescope between the two stars on the right side of the trapezoid and you should spot it.

At first glance, the Hercules cluster will look like a little puffball, but if your optics are strong enough, you'll see it's a spherical arrangement of stars with a very dense core and tiny individual stars at the outer edge.

You're looking at a spherical cluster of more than 100,000 stars crammed into an area about 150 light-years in diameter. Just one light-year equals nearly six trillion miles. This colossal city of stars lies about 20,000 light-years away.

Looking for the Hercules globular cluster is appropriate when you're galaxy gazing because the Hercules cluster — and many more like it — form a halo around our entire galaxy.

There are about 250 globular clusters that surround the Milky Way. Stars in globular clusters are very old, which might indicate they were born out of our galaxy's formation more than 10 billion years ago. Globular clusters also are seen around many other galaxies.

So kick back and enjoy the greatest show off the Earth. It's also a great time to get to know the summer constellations.

Oh, one more thing to keep in mind while you're galaxy gazing. Our Milky Way galaxy is only one of millions of other galaxies out there. The Hubble telescope has seen galaxies more than 13 billion light-years away!

It's a big sky out there for you to enjoy. Don't miss it, and slap on the bug juice!

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.