Week of July 27 — August 2, 2014

As much of our planet's Northern Hemisphere swelters under the oppressive heat of late July and early August, it's nice to know that the seasons will soon be changing. And before we know it, many of us will be whining about the cold and the snow, and wishing for the return of summer.

While such frigid conditions are hard to imagine at this time of heat and humidity — after all, winter is still officially nearly five months away — we can get a preview of the season by gazing skyward before dawn.

Early morning risers can get a glimpse of the glistening stars of wintertime by heading outdoors about an hour and a half or so before sunrise. The brightest star in the northeastern sky is Capella, sparkling like a jewel in the northwestern vertex of the constellation Auriga.

Though Auriga represents a charioteer from ancient mythology, modern stargazers can probably best identify this figure as pentagon of stars. Interestingly, the star on the opposite side of the pentagon from Capella, known as El Nath, is shared with its neighbor constellation Taurus, the bull.

Stargazers with a vivid imagination might be able to connect its stars with lines to create the form of a bull. Look for the bright reddish star Aldebaran that marks the bull's fiery red eye. And surrounding Aldebaran is a V-shaped cluster of stars known as the Hyades. In the lore of the ancients — from Greece all the way to China — the Hyades has been associated with wet and stormy weather; indeed, its name is said to come from an archaic Greek word meaning "to rain."

Only a mere 150 light years away, the Hyades forms the nearest open star cluster to the Earth, and is thought to be only about 660 million years old. Though it appears that Aldebaran is part of this cluster, it's actually only an illusion; Aldebaran lies less than half that distance away and appears in the foreground.

Riding on the back of the bull we find the Pleiades, more commonly known as the "Seven Sisters". This tiny cluster is less than 400 light years away, and may be between 50 and 100 million years old — a veritable cosmic youngster. On a dark night, look carefully at the Pleiades to see how many stars you can count. Most stargazers can count six or seven, while some sharp-eyed observers claim to have spotted as many as 16!

Below Taurus lies the brightest of all constellations: Orion, the hunter, one of the few such groupings that actually resembles its namesake. Its two northernmost stars mark the shoulders of the celestial giant, and its two southernmost form his knees. Across his mid-section appear three equally bright stars that trace a straight line outlining the hunter's belt.

To the hunter's left lies Gemini, the twins, marked by the two "twin" stars Castor and Pollux. And during the next week or so you'll spot a brilliant "star" among the stars of Gemini ... that's no star. It's the planet Venus. And if you get out before July 29 or so, you might even catch a glimpse of Mercury below and to its left.

Visit Dennis Mammana at www.dennismammana.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.