Look east on the night of Sept. 12 to see the waning gibbous moon close to the magnificent Pleiades open cluster, with the distant planet Uranus lurking nearby in the constellation Taurus.
The 62%-lit moon climbs above the eastern horizon a little over an hour before midnight for viewers in the U.S., with the Pleiades sitting less than 5 degrees to its upper right. To estimate that distance, hold out your hand: the width of your middle finger at arm's length spans roughly 5 degrees of sky..
