| Constellation tour in Winter |
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| Date & Time: | Mar 21 2020, from 21:38 to 22:03 JST(+0900) |
| Composed 6 shots with 5 minutes exposed | |
| Optical: | AF zoom-Nikkor 24-85mm (f=24mm, stop: F4.0) |
| with IDAS LPS-P2-FF Light-pollution suppression & Kenko PRO Softon[A] filters | |
| Auto-guided with TAKAHASHI EM-200 Equatorial | |
| Digital Camera: | Canon EOS 600D (Remodeled) |
| Location: | Ooizumi, Hokuto city, Yamanashi pref. |
| Camera Settings: | Recording Format...14bit CCD-RAW, converted to 16bit TIFF(5184×3456) |
| Sensitivity...ISO800 |
 Astroarts StellaNavigator |
Gemini, the Twins, is an only half-brothers. They share the same mother (Leda) and different fathers.
Castor's father was Tyndareus, a king of Sparta, and the father of Pollux was Zeus. Alpha Geminorum Castor marks the head of older, and beta Gem Pollux indicates that of shorter. But Pollux is the brighter of the two stars with a visual magnitude of 1.2, and Castor has a magnitude of 1.6. Castor is a well-known binary system with visual magnitudes are 2.0 and 2.9, and known that they are spectroscopic binary each other. In fact, the entire system is comprised of six stars, including another spectroscopic binary system of red dwarfs with a magnitude of 9, that revolving around visual binary system. The constellation is also famous for a major meteoric swarm, alpha Geminids, has the peak of appearance around Dec 13 every year. It shows as many meteors as Gamma Persei. |
Guide for Deep Sky Objects| M35 | .....Open Cluster at Castor's feet, 2600 ly. away |
| IC443 | .....Reddish supernova remnant at the legs of Castor |
| NGC2371 | .....Tiny planetary nebula squeezed between Castor & Pollux |
| Eskimo Nebula | .....Compact planetary nebula 4 deg. ESE of delta Gem, 1360 ly. away |
| NGC2420 | .....Small open cluster on the ecliptic, 4 deg. east of delta Gem |
| Sh2-247 | .....Dimmed diffused round nebula near a border to Orion |
| Sh2-253 | .....Dimmed diffused nebula near a border to Orion |
| Medusa Nebula | .....A planetary nebula with 5' diameter near a boundary on Canis Minor |
| Molecular Cloud around λ Gem | .....In southern region, extraordinary faint cloud around λ Gem |
 Canis Minor |
 Lepus |
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Copyright(c) 2020 by Naoyuki Kurita, All rights reserved. |
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