The Constellation Gemini, Photographed with an iPhone (2018)

The Constellation Gemini, Photographed with an iPhone (2018)

Here are some photos of the constellation Gemini, and neighboring stars, taken with an iPhone, in the spring of 2018 from Edmonton Alberta (latitude 54).  The pictures have been enhanced via the Gimp colour filter for brightness and contrast, increasing both brightness and contrast to bring out the less bright stars.  The accompanying picture is an inverted version of the first, swapping bright pixels for dark, as it can be easier to see some of the more subtle stars that way.

From a bright city sky, you can’t necessarily make out many stars.  Castor and Pollux, the twins, are easy to see, however.  In the above pictures, the star Beta Geminorum is also known as Pollux, while Alpha Geminorum is known as Castor.  These twins of ancient mythology are easy to make out, as they are both magnitude 1 stars (e.g. Castor about 1.6, Pollux about 1.1, both very bright).  Their brightness is a combination of their inherent large size and their relative nearness to Earth.

Castor is a triple star system (actually 6 stars, but only 3 are visible, with each of them being a spectroscopic binary).  Two of the stars can be split in a small to moderate size amateur telescope.  The brightest of the group is about magnitude 1.9, but the contribution of light from the other stars in the group bring the overall magnitude to about 1.6.  The largest components are bigger than our sun, and the distance to the system is about 51 light years or about 16 parsecs.

Pollux has a slightly orange tint to it.  It is probably variable (varies in brightness).  It is actually quite close to the Earth, at about 34 light years, or about 10 parsecs.  In fact, it is the closest giant star to the Earth.  It has at least one planet, a hot Jupiter of about 2 to 3 Jupiter masses, that orbits at about 1.6 Astronomical Units (about 150 million miles).

In the second picture, I used the Gimp sparkle filter to punch up the view a bit.  This filter enhances bright spots in the picture, and can add spikes to really bright points.  This is a bit reminiscent of what star maps look like, with brighter stars shown as bigger.  You can easily see how Pollux and Castor outshine the other stars in Gemini.

Here’s a close-up map of the same stars, from Sky and Telescope, with the iPhone photo placed side by side.

Here’s the same image, but with the constellation lines for Gemini drawn into the iPhone picture.  You can see how the iPhone did a pretty good job of capturing the main stars of the constellation, though not all of them.

Some other highlights of Gemini:

• Gamma Geminorum is also bright, at magnitude 1.9, and is bout 109 light years away.  It’s about 3 times the size of our sun.
• Delta Geminorum is about magnitude 3.5, about 60 light years away.
• Epsilon Geminorum is a double star, about magnitude 3.5 and is about 60 light years distant.  It can be split in a moderate amateur telescope.
• Epsilon is another double, about 900 light years distant, that can be split in by binoculars or small scopes.
• Zeta is also a double star, which can be split in binoculars or small scopes.  It is about 1200 light years distant, and is a Cepheid variable, a “standard candle” used by astronomers to estimate distances to other stars
• Kappa is another binary, but hard to split because the stars are not well separated.
• Eta is another double that can be split.
• The M35 open cluster is in Gemini.  That’s a bunch of stars that are gravitationally bound and close together, as seen from the Earth.
• The Eskimo nebula is a nice planetary nebula, the last stages in a star’s evolution.  It somewhat resembles a person’s head, wearing a fringed parka.
• The Medusa nebula looks rather like its namesake.  It’s a planetary nebula, but hard to see in an amateur telescope
• There are a number of other deep-sky objects, mainly open clusters of the NC category.
• The Geminids meteor shower is a big show in December.
• A recent finding is that a wandering red dwarf star probably came near our solar system about 70,000 years ago.  It would have been seen in the region of Gemini, by ancient humans, but only if it flared, as red dwarfs tend to do.  It may have perturbed some comets in the far reaches of the solar system, though there were no major impacts known at that time, so probably nothing hit the  Earth.

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In Greek mythology, Pollux was the son of Zeus.  To get the full story, read the Wiki article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux

“Leda and the Swan” is a famous poem by Yeats, related to Pollux.  Warning: Zeus was a pretty crazy God.

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/leda-and-swan

In modern mythology, Pollux is notable for being the setting of one of the original Star Trek episodes, “Who Mourns for Adonis”.

Sources:

Wiki

Google Images

Stargazing (Collins)

Space.com

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And here’s the “call to action” that all good social media is supposed to contain (especially content rich blogs :).  If you like stories set in deep space, or on distant worlds with alien cultures, you might enjoy the Kati of Terra series or the Witches’ Stones series, by Helena Puumala, published by Dodecahedron Books.

Kati of Terra Book 1: Escape from the Drowned Planet

Amazon U.S. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00811WVXO
Amazon U.K. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00811WVXO
Amazon Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00811WVXO
Amazon Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B00811WVXO
Amazon Germany: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00811WVXO
Amazon Japan:  http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00811WVXO

The Witches' Stones Book 1: Rescue from the Planet of the Amartos

U.S. Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008PNIRP4

U.K. Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008PNIRP4

Canada Amazon: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B008PNIRP4

Germany Amazon: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B008PNIRP4

Australia Amazon: http://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B008PNIRP4

Or, The Magnetic Anomaly, a Science Fiction Gothic story

U.S.: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0176H22B4
U.K. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0176H22B4
Can: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0176H22B4
Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B0176H22B4
Germany: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0176H22B4
Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B0176H22B4

It is a crossover SF/Gothic short story, about a mysterious encounter in the far north.

Kati of Terra Book 1, and The Witches’ Stones Book 1, on Kindle Countdown this week

Kati of Terra Book 1, and The Witches’ Stones Book 1, on Kindle Countdown this week

Books 1 of the Kati of Terra and Witches’ Stones Romance SciFi series are on Kindle Countdown this week (April 16-23, 2018), both great values at 99 cents each (regular $3.99).  Enjoy all the adventure and romance, in a galaxy far, far away (Kati of Terra) and in our own future Milky Way (The Witches' Stones).

 

Kati 1 - Escape from the Drowned Planet

Kati and Mikal's escape from the alien slaver Gorsh.
 

Amazon U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00811WVXO
Amazon U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00811WVXO

In saving her small son from alien abductors, a 24-year-old Earth woman, Katie, finds herself abducted instead. She awakens from a drug-induced coma on a spaceship, in a room full of children, both human and alien, and two other women, younger than she is. The young women adapt to the situation as best they can, keeping the youngsters calm and entertained. But, when a drugged alien man wearing a uniform is added to the captive cargo, it becomes clear that this is an intergalactic slave operation.

The slave traders implant their captives with “translation nodes” in order to allow communication among various groups. These are living entities, normally docile, merely enhancing certain brain functions, such as language acquisition. However, Katie discovers that she has accidentally received a very special “granda node”, a long-lived node with its own cantankerous personality, including a fondness for criminality and lethal weaponry. Fortunately for Katie, it also values its freedom. With its help, she escapes on a fringe planet, dragging the peace officer along—also at the granda’s suggestion.

She finds herself on a strange world, with a somewhat deranged personality, quite possibly a killer, in her head, and partnered with a man from an advanced civilization who abhors killing. He is a Federation Peace Officer, captured by the slavers while attempting to bring them to justice. His task is complicated by the fact that he has sworn to avoid the taking of sentient life during the performance of his duties. He can and does, however, make vigorous use of non-lethal weaponry. Since, before leaving the ship, Katie had promised to help her co-captives gain their liberty, she and the alien peace officer find that they have a common cause.

But first they must find their way off the primitive planet and get to the Federated Civilization, avoiding the slavers who have been left on the planet to re-capture them. Their flight is complicated by the fact that the planet has had a global warming catastrophe some centuries back – the locals refer to it as the Drowned World. This has forced the inhabitants to revert to a pre-industrial state of development; however, they are a wily and resourceful people, mostly helpful, but they can also be dangerous.

Kati (to mark her escape, she adopts a slight name change) and Mikal seek a Federation beacon, which had been hidden on this planet ages ago, to aid in situations such as this, (in accord with a longstanding Federation policy for fringe worlds). They must embark on an arduous trek across two continents and an ocean, seeking the temple that holds the beacon. They travel on foot, by cart, by riverboat, by tall sailing ship, and on pack animals, always pursued by the dangerous slavers.

They must rely on their wits, guile, charm and acting abilities to avoid recapture, while their chasers have advanced technology and ruthlessness on their side. Fortunately, they are able to make many friends who help them along the way, and their quest becomes a series of adventures, both frightening and funny, and involving a cast of engaging characters.

To complicate matters, Kati finds herself falling in love with Mikal, the strange, handsome and amusing alien. He seems to be reciprocating, though they both struggle against an untimely romantic entanglement.

Will Kati and Mikal escape from the Drowned Planet? Can they ultimately bring the slavers to justice, as Mikal has sworn to do? Can they free the remaining captives of the slavers, as Kati has promised to do? Read this book and the rest of the series to find out all.

At about 200,000 words (equivalent to a paperback of about 400 pages), the book is an excellent value.

The Witches' Stones, Book 1 - Rescue from the Planet of the Amartos

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008PNIRP4

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008PNIRP4

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B008PNIRP4

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B008PNIRP4

Young Earth woman and spaceship mechanic, Sarah Mackenzie, has unwittingly triggered a vast source of energy, the Witches' Stones, via her psychic abilities, of which she was unaware. She becomes the focal point of a desperate contest between the authoritarian galactic power, known as The Organization, and the democratic Earth-based galactic power, known as The Terran Confederation. The Organization wants to capture her, and utilize her powers to create a super-weapon; the Terra Confederation wants to prevent that at all costs. The mysterious psychic aliens, the Witches of Kordea also become involved, as they see her as a possible threat, or a possible ally, for the safety of their own world.

A small but fast scout-ship, with its pilot and an agent of the Terra Confederation, Coryn Leigh, are sent to rescue her from a distant planet at the very edge of the galaxy, near space claimed by The Organization.  Battles, physical and mental, whirl around the young woman, as the agent and pilot strive at all costs to keep her from the clutches of the Organization.