From in Ohio, where I am, to the right of the Moon is not Mars, but actually Jupiter.

I just checked through my binoculars, and I saw Jupiter, and 3 of the 4 moons that should easily be visible: Callisto, Io, and Ganymede, but Europa was too close to Jupiter for me to see it. However, it was really cool to see them. I need to buy a telescope someday!!

Fantastic! You made my morning!

John

Last night after the first viewing, I actually had checked online to verify the position of each moon, and saw that Europa was very close to Jupiter (from my angle), but I went out and checked again, and I could just barely make out the position of it.

My binocs are "Tasco 7x-15x35 zoom binocular", so they are not very powerful or optically capable, but still good enough to just barely see the moons.

I did try to hold my digital camera up to the binoculars and take a picture of Earth's moon, and while the detail from live viewing was really nice, the images were blurry, because the long exposure time and some of the setup was hand held (not ideal).

Also, for those with a decent computer, this is a really cool program that allows you to check out the night sky: http://www.stellarium.org/ You can zoom in and out and pan, tilt, etc... Many features are available.