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With the waxing Moon not overly bright this week, it's an ideal time to break out your binoculars and explore the profusion of open or galactic star clusters now evident in our evening sky. Such clusters represent aggregations of young, recently born stars. They are in our galaxy's local spiral arm, into whose interior we are looking at this time of year. These stars condensed out of the interstellar gas in this part of our Milky Way system.
Two of the very best are high in our evening sky and toward the south at around 7 p.m. local time. You can easily locate them by using the famous three-star belt of Orion.
Extending an imaginary line from the belt, upwards and to the right will take you to the clusters of the Hyades and Pleiades of Taurus, the Bull. Interestingly, Australian aborigines believed that the three belt stars of Orion were three young men dancing to the music played by nearby maidens (the Pleiades). Indeed, the most beautiful and famous star cluster in the night sky is the Pleiades.
On the evening of Mar. 3, the fat crescent Moon will be situated near the Pleiades. Western parts of the U.S. and Canada and all of Alaska will see the Moon cross in front of the Pleiades (an occultation). Go here for more details. On the following night, the first quarter Moon will appear to stand well above the Hyades.
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