All winter long in our Butler skies, and even during the first few weeks of spring, the mighty constellation Orion the Hunter has dominated the southern skies, but the seasonal celestial times are a-changing.

The king of the celestial beasts, the constellation Leo the Lion, appears to have chased Orion and his entourage of bright stars toward the exits of the western horizon.

Actually, it's our Earth's orbit around the sun that's put Leo flying high in the southern sky. As the Earth continues its annual journey around our home star, we're turning away from the direction of space that Orion and the prime winter stars occupy, and our gaze in April and May is now looking toward the stars of Leo.

Leo is definitely less flashy than Orion, but nonetheless, it's a distinctive and famous constellation. Most people see it as a two-part constellation. The right side is an easy-to-see backward question mark with the moderately bright star Regulus, the brightest star of Leo, marking the bottom dot of the question mark.

It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see how the sickle of stars outlines the profile of a lion's head, with Regulus marking the heart of the giant heavenly feline. To the left of the lion's bust is a triangle of moderately bright shiners that supposedly outline the lion's hind quarters and tail.

Regulus, Leo's brightest shiner, is certainly not in the upper echelon of bright stars in the night sky. In fact, Regulus is a Latin name that translates to the "little king" or "the prince."

Astronomically, it's not all that small of a star. It's nearly twice the diameter of our nearly 1 million-mile-wide sun, and its interior nuclear fusion furnace is much more active than our sun.

In fact, the outer layer of Regulus has a temperature of at least 20,000 degrees, about twice as hot as our sun. That causes it to kick out 140 times more light than our home star. Regulus would be a whole lot brighter in our sky except it's 80 light-years away, with just one light-year equaling nearly six trillion miles.

This spring it just so happens Leo the Lion is being escorted by two bright planets. Mars is just west of the sickle that makes Leo's head. Mars is easy to see since it's the brightest starlike object in that immediate part of the sky, and even to the naked eye, it possesses a copperish reddish hue.

To me, it looks like Leo is in hot pursuit of our next door neighbor in the solar system, with Mars just outside the reach of Leo's jaws. Chasing Leo is the wonderful planet Saturn, below and to the left of the star Denebola at the tail of Leo. Saturn was featured last week, and once again, I want to urge you to point your telescope at Saturn. Even smaller scopes will allow you to see the ring system and at least some of Saturn's moons.

It's not unusual to find planets in the vicinity of Leo the Lion. Leo is one of 13 constellations in what is called the zodiac band. Since Earth and the rest of the planets orbit the sun in nearly the same geometric plane, they are all found along this band of constellations that also lies along this plane.

In most cultures, Leo is depicted as a lion. Some of the earliest records we have of people making up constellation pictures come from ancient Sumerian culture, located in present-day Iraq. Sketches of Leo have shown up in caves in that area.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Leo the Lion was a huge legendary lion that terrorized the countryside annihilating and devouring anything in its path. Many tried to bring down the ferocious giant lion and wound up in its digestive system instead.

But, the mighty hero Hercules was the end of the line for Leo. Hercules is actually depicted in a nearby summer constellation I'll feature in the coming weeks. The tale of Hercules the hero is quite a story.

Other cultures have much different interpretations of the group of stars we see as Leo the Lion.

Egyptians see Leo as their famous Sphinx, a strange mythological figure of half recumbent lion with a human head in the desert sun. The constellation Egyptians saw as the Sphinx was very important to them because in ancient times, when the sun passed into the stars of the Sphinx, that was the seasonal sign of summer that the life-giving Nile River was about to go into its annual flood.

In Peru, the stars of Leo are supposed to picture a puma pouncing on its prey. In China, Leo is a zodiacal horse. Christian cultures in the middle ages saw Leo the Lion as a reminder of the biblical story of the prophet Daniel being thrown into a den of lions for his beliefs.

You probably won't have any trouble finding Leo the Lion in the high southern evening skies, but just in case you do, the waxing gibbous moon approaching its full stage can act as a guide for you this week.

As you can see in the diagram, the moon passes just under Mars being chased by Leo on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, the growing moon will slowly swing eastward, slipping just below the king of the celestial beast's mighty paws.

While you're gazing upon Leo, Mars and Saturn, there's a really big show that will be happening this week as the very bright planet Venus approaches the bright Pleiades star cluster in the low western sky. As soon as it's dark enough, about an hour after sunset, you'll easily find Venus in the low western sky. It's by far the brightest starlike object in the sky.

As this week begins, you'll see the Pleiades, otherwise known as the Seven Little Sisters, poised about seven degrees above Venus, about half the width of your fist held at arm's length. As we work through the week, Venus and the Pleiades will draw closer and closer, and by Saturday night, they will be less than three degrees apart.

By the way, Venus is about 138 million miles away this week, and traveling to the Pleiades would force you to journey just under 2,400 trillion miles!

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.