Today:
With a view to the southeast at 6:30 PM, you can see the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog, facing upward toward Orion. Well above and left of Orion will appear the Waxing Gibbous Moon making its way from Jupiter a few nights ago, to a rendezvous with the rusty-colored Mars. While Jupiter commands a bountiful collection of 95 moons, Mars only claims two very tiny moons, in actuality a pair of captured asteroids.
Sunday:
At around 6:30 PM, and about halfway up in the east-southeast appears the Moon and Mars. Very close together and in the heart of the Gemini Twins. The Twins are oriented horizontally, with their respective heads, the stars Pollux (below) and Castor (above), to left of the Moon and Mars. Mars remains near the Twins through April, before racing east through Cancer, the Crab in May, and to Leo in June and July.
Monday:
Brilliant moonlight will hamper stargazers this evening, but the trio of bright stars marking Orion’s Belt should be easy to spot, due south in the evenings near 8:10 PM. The star on the left, Alnitak, is actually a triplet of stars, the two primary stars orbiting each other every 7 years, the larger of the two being 20 times larger, and 250 thousand times brighter than the Sun!