Star Points for April, 1999; by Curtis Roelle Beehive in the Sky That dazzling planet you have been noticing in the western sky during the evening happens to be Venus. It will continue to brighten until it reaches its greatest brilliance in July. By then our Earth and Venus will be separated by half the distance they are currently. The subtle band of the winter Milky Way roughly divides the constellations of spring and winter. If you are lucky enough to be in the dark moonless countryside and your eyes have had time to adapt to the darkness you might be able to catch the glow of the Milky Way on a clear April night stretching along the western half of the sky from north to south. The winter constellations including Orion are low in the west. Gemini's twin brothers appear to be walking along the milky path of starlight with their heads, marked by the stars Castor and Pollux, admiring the reappearing stars of spring. One of the hallmark constellations of spring is Leo the lion. Leo is high in the southern sky during mid evening. Leo's most striking feature is a bent hook of seven stars in the shape of a backward question mark. Leo's most brilliant star Regulus forms the dot at the base of the question mark, or the sickle as it is often called. To the left of the sickle stars are three more of similar brightness forming the lion's triangular hindquarters. Leo faces the constellation of Cancer the crab. Living in Maryland you would expect this constellation to be better known. Alas, it is one of the faintest and most nondescript constellations in our sky. It does have one redeeming feature however. It is the home of a naked eye star cluster which is known as Praesepe or by its nickname the Beehive, an appropriate nickname for a spring cluster. Mid-April finds the Beehive well positioned for observing. At around 10 p.m. it is located nearly straight overhead. It is easy to find if you succeeded in locating Leo. With your arm outstretched use your extended fingers to measure the distance from Regulus, at the sickle's bottom tip, to the top of the sickle. Keeping your fingers locked, slowly turn your hand keeping one finger on the sickle, while studying the spot of sky at the same distance to the sickle's right. There you might notice a small misty spot. As with the invention of the telescope in 1610, binoculars will help reveal the true nature of what Hipparchus referred to as the "Little Cloud" in 130 B.C. As Dave Bowman said in the movie 2001, "it's full of stars!" To be exact as many as 350 stars have been counted in the Beehive whose estimated distance from us is some 500 light years. When you look at the beehive, the light you are seeing left the cluster about the same time that Columbus was discovering Hispaniola. So, did you find the beehive? Let me know via e-mail at StarPointsUSA@yahoo.com.