As we journey toward spring and summer, I long for those long, warm summer days, but at the same time, I miss those long winter nights of star watching.

This is the time of year I pack in as much stargazing and astrophotography as I can. Evening twilight here in Butler is ending later and later, and time is running out for prime time backyard astronomy. Not only do we still have fairly long nights, but generally, the skies are much more transparent than they are during the summer humidity and haze season.

This might sound crazy, but from now until about mid-April, I do most of my summer stargazing. I either pull an "all nighter" under the celestial dome or I have to set the alarm super early and have the discipline to get my butt out of bed. That's because this time of year, in the two to three hours before morning twilight, you can enjoy the same summer constellations and celestial goodies you see on summer evenings and you can see them more clearly without the humidity in the air. You can get a jump on summer in a way, and you don't have to deal with summer haze or mosquitoes!

While you're sucking in as much starlight as you can this time of year, I want you to look for two bright open clusters of stars nearly overhead, just after the fading end of evening twilight. I know you'll recognize one of them, the Pleiades, right away. Even in heavy city lighting, this cluster of stars is easy to find, especially with it hanging near the overhead zenith. It looks like a mini Little Dipper. As an added bonus Sunday night, the first quarter moon will be parked right next to Pleiades in a nice celestial hug.

The Pleiades also is known as the Seven Little Sisters after the daughters of the old Titan god Atlas.

According to Greek mythology, the Titan gods preceded the gods of Mount Olympus. As the story goes, when Zeus and the rest of the newer Mount Olympus gang of gods knocked off the old Titan deities in a tumultuous war, they punished Atlas by forcing him to hoist up the entire world on his weary shoulders for all eternity.

The brightest stars that make up the Pleiades cluster are all named after the daughters of Atlas. They are Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. Pleione, Atlas' first wife and the mother of the sisters, also is represented by a star in the Pleiades. It's the seventh brightest star of the cluster.

Most people only see six of the seven naked eye stars in the Pleiades. It's thought by many astronomers the seventh brightest star of the Pleiades, Pleione, Atlas's wife, might have been a lot brighter way back when. One theory is Pleione is what's known as a shell star, which are complicated stars that go through many cycles of brightening and dimming over thousands and millions of years. Currently, Pleione is the on downward side of brightness.

Through just an ordinary pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you can see there are many more stars in the Pleiades than just the naked eye shiners, and astronomically, they're all siblings, born out of the same birth cloud of hydrogen about a hundred million years ago. Believe it or not, that makes them young compared to most stars in our sky. Over the eons to come, this cluster that's over 400 light-years away will get pulled apart by the gravitational tug from other stars in our Milky Way galaxy as it hurls through space at nearly 25,000 miles an hour.

There's another open star cluster in our overhead neighborhood related in lore to the Pleiades. It's the V-shaped Hyades star cluster that actually outlines the snout of the constellation Taurus the Bull.

The Hyades is a 7 million-year-young cluster of stars just 150 light-years away, making it the second closest cluster of stellar youth to Earth. The only ones closer are the stars that make up the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Bear.

By the way, if you're new to this column, just one light-year equals close to 6 trillion miles.

Among the moderately bright stars of the Hyades is a brighter reddish star. That's Aldebaran, which makes up the angry eye of Taurus the Bull. Aldebaran is not a member of the Hyades. It's actually closer to us, located in the foreground of the Hyades cluster, about 65 light-years away. Whenever you gaze upon the stars, always remember you're looking into three dimensions.

Before Atlas was sentenced to carrying the Earth on his shoulders, he was a busy guy. He had another wife, Aethra, and seven more daughters. I don't know whether Pleione and Aethra knew each other, and just think of it, Atlas had two mother-in-laws! Maybe he was better off holding up the Earth! Just like the Pleiades, the brightest stars of the Hyades are named after the daughters of Atlas and wife No. 2. That makes the stars of the Pleiades and the Hyades half sisters.

Get a good look at the Hyades because it's going away. Astronomers have carefully measured the movement of the cluster and have discovered it's rapidly moving away from Earth. Fifty million years from now, the Hyades will shrink to the size of the moon in our sky. Bye bye ladies!

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.