Wednesday night, if the skies remain clear enough, will provide a lovely show for evening skywatchers. The crescent moon, just three days past its "new" phase, will pass just above the planet Saturn in the western sky. Saturn itself, as it happens, is at the edge of a beautiful star cluster, called the "Beehive" cluster. You'll need a small telescope to see it all. But it's a striking sight, with the ringed planet cruising amid a crowded field of sparkling stars. 

And not far away, to the right and slightly below Saturn in the evening sky, is dim, reddish Mars. And (as they say in the TV commercials) that's not all!  For the same price, the bright stars Castor and Pollux - the heads of the twins in the constellation Gemini - are directly to the right of Mars, aligned in a straight line, with Mars, Castor and Pollux at almost exactly equal distances from each other.

Here's more, including a star map.

In the meantime, Jupiter continues to blaze in the southeast in the evening. Quite a few people have noticed, and asked me about it. Don't forget to take a look with binoculars. You can see as many as four of Jupiter's largest moons aligned on either side of the giant planet, like a tiny solar system all its own.