The cosmic duo will appear less than 3 degrees apart--the width of your three middle fingers held at arm’s length. Look carefully, though, and sky-watchers can glimpse another planet, the ruddy-colored Mars, which should pop into view as a fainter star-like object to the left of the moon.

This ethereal light is caused by sunlight reflecting off countless dust particles scattered between the planets along the plane of the solar system. In the dark countryside, far from city lights, look for a pyramid-shaped glow, fainter than the Milky Way, rising above the eastern horizon before sunrise.

How big a bite out of the sun you get to see depends on location. The best place to see the event from land will be