We're now in prime summer stargazing season. It's not the brightest of constellations, but Hercules the Hero is one of my favorites.

One reason I like it so much is it has such a great story. Hercules is supposed to outline the figure of a mighty hero in Greek mythology, but to me looks more like a giant fancy handwritten capital "H" (for Hercules) hanging nearly overhead when darkness begins after evening twilight.

It's so easy to see.

Just look straight over your head toward the overhead zenith in our Butler skies. It's slightly east of the zenith as you crane your neck.

Without a doubt this is a constellation you want to take in lying on your back on a reclining lawn chair. Save your back! Save your neck!

Look for four moderately bright stars that form a trapezoid. You should be able to see it unless there's really a lot of light pollution where you are. That trapezoid is in the center of Hercules right about where you'd join the two sides of the "H."

The most significant part of Hercules is on the west side of the trapezoid. That's where you'll find one of the jewels of the sky, the great Hercules cluster, astronomically known as M13.

If you're stargazing way out in the dark skies of the boonies, you might see a faint smudge with your naked eye, but with a good pair of binoculars or even better, a telescope, you'll see a really gorgeous spherical cluster of stars, known as a globular cluster.

This is the best one in our skies. Astronomers figure it's about 25,000 light-years away, which equals about 145,000 trillion miles away. There are hundreds of thousands of stars crammed in an area a little more than 800 trillion miles wide. Through even a moderate telescope you can see some individual stars at the edge.

As with all telescopes, though, look at the cluster for extended periods through the eyepiece to let your eyes adjust to the darkness of field.

In Greek mythology, Hercules was all muscle, but he also had a big heart, at least for most of his life.

When he was a teenager, he fell in love with the beautiful but conniving Princess Megara. They married soon after they met, but the honeymoon didn't last very long.

Arguments between them were easy to come by, and it seemed to Hercules there was nothing he could do to please her. She picked and picked at him until Hercules blew his stack and temporarily lost his sanity. With his mighty hand he choked Princess Megara and all her attendants.

Immediately after the murders, Hercules quickly came to his senses and realized the extent of his horrible deeds. He was beyond sick with guilt and shame and turned himself in, leaving his fate up to Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae.The wise and just king was totally devastated with the loss of his daughter, Megara, but accepted that his son-in-law was truly sorry for his crime. Nonetheless, Hercules had to be punished, so Eurystheus assigned him to 12 great labors that he had to perform to atone for his mistake.The first of his tasks was to slay Leo the Lion, the king of kings of all beasts. Using all his strength and brains, he slayed the monster lion and went on to complete all his other labors.Zeus, the king of the gods, and all his buddies on Mount Olympus rewarded Hercules at the time of his death for all his great work by placing his body in the heavens as the constellation we see through the summer and early fall.They didn't want Hercules to receive full honors, though, because of his murder conviction, so they hung his body upside down.Leo the Mighty Lion also earned a place among the stars and most of this week is keeping company with a new crescent moon and three planets.The main part of the fairly bright constellation Leo is a backward question mark that outlines the chest and head of the tough hided beast.This time of year, the backward punctuation mark starts out the evening very low in the western sky, leaning so far to the right it's almost laying down as it heads for the western horizon.It almost looks as if the lion is charging out of the sky with Hercules nearby in hot pursuit of his worthy opponent.Just to the lower left of the backward question mark you'll easily see the planets Venus, Mars and Saturn lined up nicely.Venus is by far the brightest of planets. I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time pursuing any of these planets with even a larger telescope since they're so low in the sky, forcing you to visually plow through so much of Earth's blurring atmosphere.But it's a great naked- eye attraction, especially this week with the crescent moon patrolling close by.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 website www.lynchandthestars.com.