Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, February 23rd.  The sun will rise at 7:30.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 6:21.   The moon, 2 days past new, will set at 8:34 this evening.

High in the south southeast at 9 p.m. is the constellation of Gemini the twins.  The heads of the two lads contain bright stars with their names.  Brighter Pollux is below and Castor is above.  Stars that delineate their bodies lie to the lower right of them stretching out in the direction of Orion.  Castor is an interesting star because it is actually six stars.  Two are easily seen.  The two brightest component stars can be resolved in a small telescope.  Each has a red dwarf companion detectable only by indirect means.  The fifth and sixth stars makes a faint eclipsing binary of red dwarf stars some distance away and very faint.  The Castor system resides some 50 light years away.

* 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.