I watched the Moon pass in front of M45 the other night. The Moon was sketched first, and the placement of M45's remaining visible stars was completed around 1am. It was neat to see the brighter stars wink out one by one behind the Moon's leading (nearly) dark edge. By 1am Electra, Celaeno, Taygeta, and Maia were all gone. Between the occulted stars and the dimmer ones that were missing due to the brightness of the moon, only a handful of stars remained. What was left did not look much like M45.
