Last month, we called attention to a celestial assembly involving the moon, two bright stars and two bright planets adorning our western evening sky.
Now, another, similar gathering will take place this week; an array that will change night to night as we transition from the spring into the summer season with the summer solstice on June 21. Here’s a look at the how the stars of Gemini will shine with the moon, Mars and Venus as summer begins.
The week’s skywatching feast begins Monday evening on June 19, the “Juneteenth” holiday in the United States. Starting at 45 to 60 minutes after sundown, look low to the west-northwest horizon.
There, you will find a slender sliver of a crescent moon, less than two days after new phase. And directly above it you should be able to make out two stars, Pollux and Castor, marking the heads of the Twin Brothers, Gemini.
There seems to be some evidence that when they were first chosen to represent the Twins, they actually appeared to be twin stars of equal brightness.Â
If true, either Pollux has grown brighter or Castor had faded in the night sky, for there is a noticeable difference between them now. Pollux now appears a little over twice as bright as Castor and is also one of the 57 standard navigational stars. But Castor is the real “star” of Gemini. Â
Although it appears as a single star with the unaided eye, it is actually a system of six stars. In a telescope we see two, Castor A and B. Furthermore, both A and B are themselves doubles, though much too close to be separated optically (called spectroscopic doubles). Finally, well off to the south of the main pair is Castor C, a pair of dim red stars.
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