To use this map, cut it out and attach it to a stiff backing. Hold it over your head and line up the compass points on the map to the compass points on the horizon. East and west on this map are not backwards, when you hold this map over your head, they will be in their proper positions. Use a small flashlight and attach a red piece of cloth or red construction paper to the lens. You won't lose your night vision when you look at this map in red light.

So we've arrived at April. Allegedly, Pennsylvania nights are growing warmer and you can take off at least some of your layers while stargazing, but there is a trade off here, actually a couple of trade offs.

For one thing, the nights while getting warmer are also getting shorter. Now, at nights, it's not dark enough for decent stargazing until after 8:30 p.m.

Another trade off for the warmer stargazing is the fact that the best and brightest stars and constellations of the year, in my opinion, are starting to head for the celestial exits. The mighty constellation Orion the Hunter and his gang of bright constellations are a little farther to the west every night.

The Earth in its perpetual orbit around the sun is gradually turning away from the great stars of winter. By about mid- to late-May, they'll be pretty much gone from our evening skies, not to be seen in the evening again until this fall.

Don't get me wrong here, even though the very best of the night sky is checking out in the west, there are still many treasures in the rest of the heavens. Over in the high southeastern sky, look for a backward question mark that outlines the heart, chest, and head of Leo the Lion. The semi-bright star Regulus, Leo's heart, is at the bottom of the question mark. To the lower left of the question mark is a small but distinct triangle that makes up the lion's backside and tail.

To the upper right of the backward question mark of Leo is the lovely, lovely planet Saturn. Oh how I love steering my giant telescopes at the ringed wonder of our solar system! What can I say about Saturn, with that beautiful ring system over 130,000 miles wide but only about 10 to 20 miles thick. If your scope is powerful enough, you can also see tiny little "stars" that are some of Saturn's moons.

The brightest one is Titan, the one that the Huygens spacecraft landed on a few years ago. One of the biggest joys I have at my star parties is showing folks Saturn through my big telescopes and hearing the "oohs" and "aahs." I've been accused of having a slide projector with a slide of Saturn rigged to the eyepiece.

By the way, that really bright star that practically knocks you over in the low western sky in the evening is the planet Venus. It's so bright because it's only 117 million miles away and its heavy cloud cover bounces a lot of reflected sunlight our way. Unlike Saturn, it's not much to look at because of its perpetual cloud cover. All you really see these evenings through your scope is a bright ovalish orb.

By the way, the moon, the enemy of stargazing, is full or nearly full this first week of April. That'll really throw a lot of unwanted light in the sky and make constellations a little harder to find. By next week though, the moon will be less full and will rise much later in the evening leaving us with darker, friendlier skies.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the book, "Pennsylvania Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.