03/25/11 – Ephemeris – The stars Castor and Pollux
Friday, March 25th. The sun will rise at 7:36. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 24 minutes, setting at 8:00. The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 3:20 tomorrow morning
Castor and Pollux are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini, at the heads of their namesakes. They are high in the south at 10 p.m. Castor, the horseman is on top. It is actually 6 stars orbiting about a common center of gravity in pairs. The two brightest unresolved pairs, named Castor A and Castor B are discernible in telescopes. They all lie 45 light years away. Pollux the pugilist is a single star, slightly brighter than Castor, and somewhat closer to us at 33.7 light years. In his 1603 atlas of the heavens Johannes Bayer gave Castor the alpha designation to Pollux’s beta, even though Pollux is slightly brighter. I once took a photograph of Pollux during the daytime under special circumstances: it happened to be near the totally eclipsed sun.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Gemini with the stars Castor and Pollux. Created using Stellarium.
Click to enlarge.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 
……………………………………………….Pollux is the brighter of two bright stars in the constellation Gemini the Twins. The orange color of Pollux reveals that this star is in the autumn of its years and is swelling to become a giant star.