Now that we’re well into summer, I want to tell you about another of my constellation favorites: Hercules, the upside-down Hero. It’s certainly not one of the brightest constellations, but I love the celestial Hero’s classic story. Hercules is supposed to outline the figure of a mighty hero in Greek mythology, but to me, it looks more like a giant fancy handwritten capital “H” (for Hercules) hanging high in the southeastern sky.

As soon as it’s dark enough, around 10 p.m., start looking for the brightest star you can see very high in the southeast sky. That’s Vega, the brightest star in the diminutive constellation Lyra the Lyre. About 15 to 20 degrees to the upper right of Vega or about two of your fist-widths at arm’s length, look for four moderately bright stars that form a trapezoid. You should be able to see it unless there’s really a lot of light pollution from where you’re observing. That trapezoid is in the center of the Hercules, right about where you’d join to two sides of the “H.”

One of the best hidden celestial treasures in the entire night sky any time of the year lives within Hercules. It’s the amazing Hercules cluster between the stars that make up the upper right side of the Hercules trapezoid, as you can see in the diagram. It’s wonderful, even if you view it with a small telescope. You can almost see it with the naked eye if you’re stargazing in the super dark countryside. At first, it’ll resemble a faint smudge with a telescope using a low-power magnification eyepiece, but with more magnification, you’ll see a gorgeous spherical cluster of ancient stars known as a globular cluster. This is the best one in our skies.

The great Hercules cluster is about 25,000 light-years, or about 145,000 trillion miles, away. Well over a half million stars may be crammed in an area a little over 800 trillion miles wide. Too many stars are in the center to resolve them individually, but even a moderate telescope can see some individual stars at the edge. As it is with all telescopic viewing, look at the cluster for extended periods with your scope to let your eyes get used to the darkness of the field. I love showing off to the folks at my summer stargazing parties through my larger telescopes. The Hercules cluster is one of many globular clusters that form a halo around our Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers don’t know precisely how they were created, but globular clusters are certainly part of our galaxy’s evolution. One theory is that they could be “mini-galaxies” that the Milky Way gravitationally absorbed.

In Greek Mythology, Hercules was a mighty muscle man. He also had a massive heart for most of his life, except for a brief, awful, insane episode. Young Hercules, a teenager, fell in love with the beautiful but conniving Princess Megara. They foolishly married soon after meeting, but the honeymoon didn’t last very long. Arguments quickly broke out. Hercules felt that there was nothing he could do to please Megara. She picked at Hercules until he blew his stack and temporarily lost his sanity. With his mighty hand, he choked Princess Megara and all her attendants.

Immediately after the massacre, Hercules instantly came to his senses and realized the extent of his horrible deeds. He was beyond sick with guilt and shame and turned himself in, leaving his fate up to Eurystheus, the King of Mycenae and Megara’s father. Even though the wise and highly compassionate king was devastated by the loss of his daughter Megara, he accepted that his son-in-law was genuinely sorry for his crime and the temporary loss of his sanity. Nonetheless, Hercules had to be punished, so Eurystheus assigned Hercules to 12 arduous labors to perform to atone for his crime.

One of his labors was to slay Leo the Lion, the king of kings of all beasts. Using all his strength and brains, he slays the monster lion and completes all his other labors, including taking on a nine-headed snake stealing cattle from a monster.

Zeus, the king of the gods, and all his buddies on Mount Olympus rewarded him at the time of his death for all his great work by placing his body in heaven as the constellation we see through the summer and early fall. They didn’t want Hercules to receive full honors because of his murder conviction, so they hung his body upside down in the heavens.

Celestial hugging this week

Late next Saturday night, July 13, the first quarter (half moon) will cross in front of the bright star Spica in the low southwestern sky. This stellar eclipse, formally known as an occultation, will begin at 9:56 p.m. as Spica slips behind the darkened eastern half of the moon’s disk. Spica emerges from the lit-up western side of the moon at 11:13 p.m. By then, the moon and Spica will barely be above the southwestern horizon. The moon’s orbit around the earth causes it to migrate gradually to the east against the stellar background. Next Saturday night the moon will just happen to pass in front of Spica, a star over 260 light-years away. Just one light-year equals nearly 6 trillion miles!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.