What’s that bright star near the moon tonight? It’s Jupiter! Jupiter is brightest “star” in the eastern sky during March, following Venus‘ brilliance in the western evening sky.
Separations are difficult to detect to the unaided eye. In astronomy, we describe the distance between celestial objects in angular degrees, as measured by a protractor with your eye at the corner or vertex of the angle. The full moon is about 1/2 degree across. Our charts exaggerate the size of the moon so it cannot be used as a measuring scale on these images.
March 1: The moon is 15 degrees (30 full moon diameters) to the upper right of Jupiter which is 15 degrees above the star Regulus
March 2: The moon is about 6 degrees to the right of Jupiter
March 3: The moon is 12 degrees below Jupiter and 6 degrees to the upper right of Regulus.