The constellation Gemini the Twins pops out in the very high southeastern sky and resides on the east end of my favorite part of the sky with “Orion and his gang.”

Just look for the famous constellation Orion the Hunter in the due southern Butler sky as soon as it's dark enough in the evening. You can't miss it.

It's the one that looks like a giant hourglass with the three bright stars in a perfect row that make Orion's belt. Then look for two nearly identical bright stars close to each other to the upper left of Orion. These are the stars Castor and Pollux, the brightest stars in Gemini that mark the heads of the celestial set of twins.

Seeing the rest of Gemini can be a little tricky, but it's certainly doable. Unless you're viewing from an area of heavy city lighting, you should be able to see two faint, crooked, but parallel lines of stars to the lower right of the stars Castor and Pollux. Those are the bodies of the twins that remind me of stick men. The feet of Castor and Pollux are not that far away from Betelgeuse, the star that marks Orion's armpit.

If you slowly and carefully scan the constellation Gemini with a small telescope, or even a pair of binoculars, you'll run into some nice star clusters. These are groups of young stars that were born out of the same giant hydrogen gas cloud.

An especially nice open cluster of youthful stars is right next to the foot of Castor. It's Messier Object 35, or M35 for short.

I know you'll want to gaze at that one again and again, and when you do, realize that this cluster of stars is nearly 3,000 light years away. Just one light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. The light we see from M35 this winter has been traveling to Earth since about 1,000 B.C.

Castor and Pollux are often called the twin stars not just because they're the brightest stars in Gemini, but also because they're about the same brightness in the sky. But that's where the similarity ends.

Pollux is a giant star, more than 8 million miles in diameter. That's nine times the diameter of our sun. It's also more than 30 times more luminous than our sun, and sports a surface temperature of almost 8,000 F, which is a little cooler than our home star.

In 2006 it was discovered that Pollux has a giant planet more than twice the diameter of Jupiter revolving around it. It may easily have other planets circling around as well.

Gazing at the star Castor proves that heavenly looks really can be deceiving. A small-to-moderate telescope reveals that Castor is a beautiful double star, but a larger telescope reveals that what appears to be a single star to the naked eye is actually a collection of six relatively puny stars revolving around each other in an intricate cosmic ballet.

Can you imagine living on a planet like our Earth going around one of those stars? You'd have six sunrises and six sunsets every day. It would never get dark.

According to Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux were the twin sons of Leda, the queen of Sparta. The twins, though, had two different fathers. Castor was the son of Leda's husband, King Tyndarus, but Pollux's dad was Zeus, the king of the gods.

If you read through the many pages of Greek mythology you quickly learn that Zeus was an outright scoundrel. The same night that Castor was conceived, Zeus, with all his godly magic, seduced Leda by making himself look just like King Tyndarus, and Pollux was conceived. Leda had one wild night. Greek mythology stories are full of this kind of behavior.

As a result, when the twin boys were born nine months later, Castor was 100 percent mortal and Pollux was born half-god.

The twins grew up together in privilege, living in the castle with the finest of everything: great education, great fun and lots of money. They were the best of friends as well as brothers. They hung out together all the time, even after they grew up. Castor became one of the finest horsemen in the land, and Pollux became a championship boxer.

Their lives were fantastic until the day the adult twins got into an argument with their cousins over farmland and cattle. Angry words flew and soon so did fists.

Pollux, being a boxer, definitely had the upper fist, so to speak, but Castor fought just as hard. It wasn't intentional, but one of the cousins punched Castor so hard that he lost his balance and fell to the ground. His head struck a bolder that tragically killed him instantly.

Being a mortal, Castor went off to the underworld, and Pollux missed him like crazy. He longed for the day that he could join his brother again, but that was impossible since Pollux was godly and therefore immortal. He would never be allowed to see his brother again.

Pollux begged and begged his father, Zeus, to do something so he could see his best friend again. Finally Zeus allowed Pollux to spend half of each day with Castor in the underworld and half the day in this world. It wasn't like the old days, but it was better than nothing.

The love these two twins had for each other is celebrated in the skies every night, and over the years the constellation Gemini the Twins became a good-luck charm to sailors and travelers. Keep an eye on them in your travels.

Make the stars your old friends

If you have any astronomical questions or want me to write about something you're seeing in the night sky drop me a line at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

I will read them.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and broadcast meteorologist in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Stars; a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations.”