The Christmas Tree Cluster is located to the left of the prominent constellation Orion The Hunter. However, the faint stars are too hard to see with the naked eye and require binoculars or a telescope to view.

I don't know about you, but I love hanging holiday lights on my house and in the trees.

In fact, I consider myself the local "Griswold" in my neighborhood. I don't have as many lights up as Chevy Chase had in the classic holiday movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," but the glow from my house does extend several blocks. Fortunately no 747s have mistaken my front yard for a runway.

The night sky always has its holiday lights up. At this time of year, with the long winter nights, we get an extended show.

Unfortunately there aren't really any constellations or constellation stories that have much to do with Christmas. Most of the names and stories we know involve early Greek and Roman mythology, which isn't exactly stoked with holiday spirit, mistletoe and holly.

There is a small, however, a small symbol of the holiday season in the eastern sky called the Christmas Tree Cluster, because that's exactly what it looks like. You'll need binoculars or a small telescope to see this celestial yuletide greeting, and you'll have to wait until after 8:30 p.m. or so for it to be high enough above the eastern horizon.

It might take a little work to find the cluster, but once you do it'll add to your holiday spirit.

The cluster is in a very obscure constellation called Monoceros the Unicorn. Forget about trying to see this constellation. It's just too faint and undefined.

The best way to find it is to use the bright constellation Orion the Hunter, perched diagonally in the southeastern sky. I know you've seen it before. It's the dominant constellation of winter, with three bright stars in a nearly perfect row that make up the belt of the mighty hunter.

On the upper left corner of Orion is a bright reddish tinged star called Betelgeuse that marks the armpit of the hunter. On the upper right corner of Orion is the star Bellatrix, not quite as bright as Betelgeuse.

Draw a line from Bellatrix to Betelgeuse and continue that line to the lower left about 10 degrees from Betelgeuse. Ten degrees is about the width of your fist at arm's length. Scan that area with your binoculars or telescope and you should eventually find it.

Once you find it, you'll see that the 20 or so stars are actually arranged in the shape of a Christmas tree, and that there are even a couple of brighter stars that mark the top of the tree.

The cluster will appear to point to the right in binoculars but in most telescopes it will appear to point left since the optics in most telescopes give you an inverted view of the heavens.

The Christmas tree shape of the cluster is arguably a pleasant coincidence. The stars just happened to be arranged that way from our view from Earth. Like most open clusters, this is a group of young stars that formed out of the large nebula of hydrogen gas, much like our sun did over 5 billion years ago.

These clusters of young stars hang out together for several hundred million years until gravity from other surrounding stars breaks the cluster up.

This Christmas Tree Cluster bids us tidings of joy from over 2,600 light years away, with just one light year equaling almost 6 trillion miles. The light we see from it tonight left that cluster in 606 B.C.

The famous British astronomer William Herschel discovered this cluster in 1783 near Bath, England, and over 200 years later it's starry ornaments are still lighting up the tree, waiting for you to make your discovery

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