But planet Venus outshines usually dominant Capella

Do you know the name of the brightest nighttime star we see most often?

Yes, this is a trick question.

It's not Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. It's not Polaris the North Star, and it's not even my favorite star, Betelgeuse, the armpit of the constellation Orion the Hunter.

The brightest star we see most often in the skies is Capella, known as the goat star.

On these midspring evenings about 10 p.m., when it's finally dark enough, you see it hanging out in the low western skies.

Normally this time of year, it would be the brightest stellar object in that part of the sky, but this spring, Capella has to take a back seat, kind of. As you can see on the diagram, the bright planet Venus is certainly not a star but the brightest starlike object in the entire sky right now, at least in the early evening.

Capella is the next brightest object you can see now. It's a little to the upper right of Venus.

At least that's the case this spring because Venus and the rest of the planets wander among the backdrop of stars as they obediently orbit the sun. Next spring, Venus won't be anywhere near Capella.

Capella is the fourth brightest nighttime star we see over Butler and the brightest star we see most often. That's because it's the closest brightest star closest to Polaris, the North Star that marks the position of the North celestial pole.

Everything we see in the sky, including the sun, moon, planets and stars, all rotate once around Polaris at the North celestial pole every 24 hours.

It's what I selfishly call the "Lynchpin" of the sky because it shines above the Earth's North Pole.

If we lived at the North Pole, the North Star Polaris would be directly overhead at the zenith, and everything in the sky would pivot around the overhead North Star every 24 hours.

Here, we live about halfway between the North Pole and the Earth's equator, so Polaris in our sky is permanently fixed halfway between the northern horizon to the overhead zenith.

Stars and constellations like the Big and Little Dippers as well as the W-shaped Cassiopeia, which are close to Polaris in our skies, are always above the horizon in a tight circle around the North Star. They are called circumpolar stars, and we see them night after night. Capella, the goat star, is not quite close enough to Polaris to be considered a circumpolar star, but it's close.

Because of its northwardly position, Capella is in our evening skies from late August until just about mid-June, and throughout the year, it never goes a complete night without making a brilliant appearance.

Capella also is the brightest star in the constellation Auriga, the chariot driver turned goat farmer.

Auriga and the constellation Gemini the Twins are all that's left of Orion's gang of winter constellations that are heading for the celestial exits in the western horizon.

They won't be back in the evening skies until late next fall when our evening worldly view turns back toward that direction of space.

Without a doubt, Auriga is one of the strangest constellations in the skies. It basically looks like a lop-sided pentagon with Capella at one of the corners. There must have been quite a party when folks in the Greek countryside looked up at the stars and dreamed up that constellation.

As it is with all constellations, there are a lot of stories and mythology about how certain constellations got up in the sky, depending on the local culture.

One of the Greek mythology tales involves the legendary King Erichthonius of Athens, whose father was Hephaestus, the god of fire.

A lot of kings back then had at least one godly parent. In fact, Hephaestus was lucky enough to be raised by Athena, the patron goddess of the Greek city of Athens.

Athena raised Erichthonius with a lot of love and the best schooling, and she also passed on her love of raising and taming of horses. Erichthonius became quite skilled with horses and went on to be the first to harness four horses on one chariot.

As much as Erichthonius loved the challenges of horsemanship, he also longed for the simple life of a farmer.

One day, he just abruptly walked away from his horse fame and became a goat farmer. He just loved his new life. He didn't even mind shoveling in the pens every day. He was free from the hustle and bustle of rush hour traffic in ancient Athens.

He died a happy old man and was honored by the king of the gods, Zeus, who had the body of Erichthonius magically transformed into the pentagon shape of stars we see today.

Zeus gave him a set of chariot reins and even stuck a mama goat and three kids, or baby goats, up there with him.

The star Capella marks the position of the mama goat, thus making it the "goat star."

Just below Capella, with your naked eye, you'll see three fainter stars formed in a triangle that make up the young kids.

The one kid star closest to Capella is called Almaaz, a giant binary star system more than 12,000 trillion miles from Earth more than 40,000 times more luminous than our sun. That's one bright kid!

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.