A popular spring constellation, easy to find, is Boötes, the shepherd. The large constellation is rising in the north east after sunset. The arrangement of stars looks like a large kite, though it depicts a shepherd. The bright orange star Arcturus is at the bottom of the kite, where one might attach a tail.

Another way to find this constellation is to use the Big Dipper higher in the northeast. The dipper is a few hours from being at its highest in the sky. If you can find the big dipper, follow the stars that make up the handle and look East. The Big Dipper handle stars point to Arcturus.

Boötes is a constellation that will be with us well into summer and it marks an interesting part of the sky, where astronomers are scratching there heads. Boötes possesses a hole in the deep sky where there are few stars and few galaxies. As astronomers point there telescopes around, they easily see many galaxies out and beyond our own Milky Way. When they point their telescopes to a specific area in Boötes, they find an emptiness that is truly unique and unusual and far short of being explainable.

For those of use standing out at night, Boötes is already a magical place. Arcturus is the third brightest star in our sky and dominates the night through spring and into summer. Arcturus is old and big, so big it makes our our own sun, small. Arcturus is 36 light years away and is 25 times bigger than our sun. It is too big for us or our solar system. If Arcturus were to replace our sun we'd be cooked.