Constellations VIII: Gemini

Starlog March 3rd, 2018, 08:45 p.m. local time

Shortly after I took long exposure images of Orion on Saturday night, I repointed my camera further up, above Orion and towards the East. This is where Gemini resided, high overhead.  The same camera settings were used as for Orion.  Additionally, I used essentially the same post-processing techniques that I have experimented with on Orion these past few days.  Whenever I redid Orion, I subsequently tried the same on my Gemini raw image.

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The thing about Gemini is that there is no obvious outline to the constellation.  In my skies, the main stars Pollux and Caster are easily visible, but that is about it.  And even if I could see more stars, I would have a hard time tracing this constellation without a high familiarity of its shape.  I decided that tracing the constellation on the image would be helpful in this case.

Besides the feature Gemini you can also see all of Canis Minor with its bright star Procyon.  Orion’s upper arm is seen below Gemini, with the eastern edge of Taurus just visible (the blue star at the very right edge of the photo is Zeta Tauri).  At the bottom of the image are a few stars from the unicorn, Monoceros.

Every dot you see in this image really is a star.  It has been fun for me to compare my images with detailed star charts to trace out these sometimes unnamed stars.  It proves to me that they are not just camera background noise but genuinely specks representing stars and star systems in our Milky Way Galaxy.  This shows the power of a decent lens and inexpensive digital camera being able to punch through the canvas of light pollution to reveal the truths above.

Since I started taking wide-field views of the sky, I put my tally of snagged constellations at 30:

• Ursa Minor
• Draco
• Leo the Lion
• Aquila
• Sagitta
• Delphinus
• Velpecula
• Lyra
• Cygnus
• Taurus
• Perseus
• Camelopardalis
• Auriga
• Cassiopeia
• Cepheus
• Scorpius
• Ophiuchus
• Virgo
• Cancer
• Leo Minor
• Lynx
• Ursa Major
• Pegasus
• Andromeda
• Orion
• Canis Minor
• Lepus
• Monoceros
• Eridanus
• Gemini

References:

• Constellations I: Testing Ursa Minor, Snagging Draco
• Constellations II: Leo the Lion
• Constellations III: Of the Summer Triangle
• Constellations IV: Scorpius Rising
• Constellations V: Leo the Lion (Remastered)
• Constellations VI: Pegasus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, and the Quest for the Andromeda Galaxy
• Constellations VII: Orion and Taurus
• Constellations VIII: Gemini (this post)
• Meteor Hunting, 2017 Edition