Paul,
As of this morning (08/23) at about 6am the moon was
almost exactly in the middle of Mars to the east (left),
Jupiter to the west (right), Capella to the north
(above), and the constellation of Orion about the same
distance south (below). The fairly bright star closest
to the moon this morning was Aldebaran, which is just a bit
below and to the right of the moon.
It is my understanding that Elenin is coming out of
the Leo constellation, which is almost directly behind the
sun at this time of year.
For those who are interested, I highly recommend the
Stellarium program, which allows you to see all of the stars
all times of the year, (even when the sun is shinning, if
you turn off light pollution - too bad you can't do that in
real life). You can also set light pollution in
varying degrees so you can see which stars you would see
from your location. It's a very capable program and is
free. It's very user friendly, once you figure out
that there are two menus in an L shape in the bottom left
corner of the screen. Pointing at them with the mouse
causes them to pop up.
You can easily set the date/time to the exact time you were
looking at the stars and then click on any object to see
what it is, and how far away from earth it is.
(I don't believe Elenin is in it's default database, but can
probably be added)
http://www.stellarium.org/
John
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/aug2011/paulw823.htm