Moon approaching Gemini 'Triplets'
3 comments Print Me Email to FriendTonight's Sky for Thursday, May 08 2008
This evening after dark look in the west and find a lovely waxing crescent moon at the knees of the constellation Gemini, also known as the Twins. See the stars Castor and Pollux? They almost look like a pair of eyes staring at you. These two stars represent the starry eyes of two twin brothers. The red planet Mars now can be seen almost in a line with these two Twin stars of Gemini. So you can imagine the Twins as Triplets tonight, with Mars as the third component.
Notice the colors of these objects. Mars is reddish. Pollux is generally said to be yellow. Castor has a slightly bluish tint.
When you use large binoculars or small telescopes, you will discover that Castor has another star that appears close to it. This companion star is known as Castor B. However through spectroscopy – the splitting of light into its component colors – the two stars that make up Castor each were discovered to be double as well. Though Pollux is a solitary star, it is probably the brightest star that we know of in our sky (besides the sun) with a planet orbiting it.
While you have your binoculars out viewing the colors and companion star to Castor, swing back to the moon. When it is a young crescent moon like it is tonight, it is the best time to see craters along the terminator line, or the day/night line on the moon.
You may also be catching glimpses of a fuzzy patch below the moon, this is M35, an open cluster. This is a group of stars that are formed out of the same stellar cloud and travel relatively in space in the same direction.
Just a little while ago these “Triplets” formed a perfect right triangle, what a change! I read an article that you could fit 10 BILLION Mars’ inside just one Pollux, wow! Talk about a size difference :-] Tonight I’m going to look for M35, and see if I can find the elusive Mercury. Happy Stargazing!
wow yhat is so cool
Hi Rob and Mike … I agree! A very cool sight in the night sky.
Deborah