Without a doubt we're entering the best stargazing season of the year in Butler.

Unfortunately it's also the coldest season of the year.

I call it the great trade- off of stargazing. On those warm summer nights when you look forward to checking out the universe over your head two major obstacles get in your way, the lateness and the mosquitoes.

You have to stay up past 10:30 p.m. to truly get dark skies, and while you're waiting as twilight fades the mosquitoes are feasting on you. And, when it's finally dark enough, the night skies are OK but they're not as spectacular as the stars of winter, at least in this stargazer's opinion.

While you have to brave the cold, the winter constellations like Orion and his gang are just so special and spectacular. Another reward for putting up with the big chill is that you can begin your adventure under the heavens much earlier, in fact right after supper.

This week, though, the full moon will really spoil your view as the sky gets “moon washed.”

Next week it'll be a whole lot better. However, there is a celestial gem this week involving the full moon. That's when it gets close and personal with the planet Jupiter.

On Wednesday night the full moon will hang just below the bright planet Jupiter and on Thursday night it'll be perched just above the largest planet of solar system.

Jupiter is also at its closest point to the Earth, just under 400 million miles away.

As good as the moon-Jupiter show is, the very best show this week in the early morning skies is provided by Venus and Saturn.

You really don't want to miss this. It's really worth getting up a little early for!

Since early summer, Venus has been regaling us with its brilliance in the pre-dawn eastern sky. Over and over I get phone calls and e-mails about that super bright star in the east. I even get the occasional “What is that UFO?”

Venus has been so bright in our skies for two reasons.

First off, it's been relatively close. Earlier in the summer it was less than 30 million miles away which, for Venus, is nearly its minimum separation from Earth.

It's now farther away at just over 100 million miles. It's also so bright because it's shrouded completely by a very reflective cloud deck that bounces a lot of secondhand sunlight our way.

Venus has also been gradually drifting eastward among the backdrop of stars leaving it lower and lower in east at the beginning of morning twilight.

In fact, early next year Venus will drop out of the morning sky completely and begin its reign in the evening twilight sky.

Right now, though, Venus is still very much alive and well in the early breakfast morning sky and is in what I call a close celestial hugging with the great planet Saturn.

In fact, this week the two planets will be practically touching. It's so easy and rewarding to see. For most of this week they'll be less than a degree apart which, by the way, is only the width of your forefinger at arm's length.

Saturn will be just to the lower left of Venus Monday morning and will be considerably dimmer but easily bright enough to see with the naked eye, once you get the sleep out your eyes.

On Tuesday morning, Venus will sit just above Venus and on Wednesday and Thursday it'll be to the upper right of Venus and beginning to pull away.

While Venus has been migrating eastward among the stars, Saturn is holding nearly steady setting up their “near collision” early this week.

Actually they're nowhere close to having a planetary calamity because they're physically nowhere near each other.

They just happen to be in the same line of site.

In fact, Saturn is nearly 900 million miles farther way.

While this conjunction of Venus and Saturn is a close one, conjunctions between planets in our solar system are not all that uncommon because all the planets pretty much follow the same path among the stars called the ecliptic.

Of course the planets move at different speeds along it and can move both west and east against the backdrop of stars.

This week as Venus and Saturn are in their tight celestial tango, get a hold of a even a small telescope and you'll like what you see.

Even though Venus is brighter, Saturn is the feature attraction with its wonderful ring system made up of ice covered dust particles, rocks, and small boulders.

In fact, it's been estimated that there's 26,000 times more water in the form of ice in Saturn's rings than all the water in Earth's oceans.

Saturn appears so much smaller than Venus simply because it's so much farther away. Saturn even minus the rings is almost 75,000 miles in diameter, more than nine times that of Venus.

Enjoy the Venus and Saturn show as they closely pass each other going in their separate celestial directions.