We are in the best part of a stargazing winter this weekend. The temperature outside isn't too chilly at night and the nights this weekend are moonless. If skies are clear we'll have a canopy overhead of billions of stars. The Milky Way can be breathtaking if there is no light pollution.

The Milky Way is a belt that extends from southeastern horizon, runs almost overhead, near our zenith, and then sinks below the horizon in the northwest.

There are so many stars overhead. And with low-powered binoculars you can even see faint star clusters, areas of the sky where there are densely populated groups of stars. The Pleiades and the Hyades, both star clusters in the zodiacal constellation Taurus, are visible with the naked eye.

There is change ahead. A thin waxing crescent moon appears low in the southwestern sky on Tuesday night. Only a few of us will see it. More will see the moon on Wednesday night when it is higher in the west.