The evening scene shows the winter constellations leaning over to the right as they tilt down into the twilight.  They are joined in 2025 by Jupiter in eastern Taurus and Mars high above them Cancer. For three evenings starting tonight, the crescent Moon joins them to create a series of fascinating alignments and conjunctions with background stars and planets.

Jupiter is at magnitude -2.02 tonight, which makes it brighter than Sirius by a considerable margin; compare them by examining the image showing Sirius and Orion versus the one showing Jupiter.  Another planet is part of the scene, although not visible on any of the images; Uranus is located just above the horizon, to the left of the Moon.  Finally, we have Mars situated in central Cancer, above any of the views we show here.

As we can see, the Moon this evening is below the Pleiades, and tomorrow we would see it about the same distance above and to the left of the famous cluster.  Folks on the opposite side of the world have the good luck of being able to see the still slender crescent in the middle of the cluster.  A more immediate milestone for the Moon occurs in a matter of a few hours, namely crossing from Aries into Taurus.

The Moon's rendezvous with the Pleiades over the next day is a manifestation of its orbital track this year.  Because its ascending node falls near the vernal equinox, it travels even farther north while on the northern half of the ecliptic.  When traveling on the southern half of the ecliptic it exaggerates its southerliness because descending node is near the autumnal equinox.