You don't want to wait to enjoy the constellation Gemini the Twins because in about a month what's left of the winter constellations will be gone from the evening skies.

This is all part of the annual dance of all constellations as they shift to the west from night to night as the Earth rounds the sun every 365-plus days. The winter constellations have to leave our western skies to allow for summer constellations to come up in the east.

The night sky just isn't big enough to accommodate all the constellations at the same time but that makes stargazing fun. The constellation stage is always in flux.

So if the constellation Gemini the Twins has been on the prowl in the evening sky since December, why am I waiting until it's almost outta here to write about it?

The truth ¿ I just plain forgot!

As it's said though, better late than never. Actually this isn't all that bad a of time of year to spot Gemini the Twins because the dynamic duo that makes up Gemini is standing upright not that far from the western horizon just after evening twilight.

As you can see on the diagram, just look for two bright stars close together in the moderately low western sky.

You can't miss them. There are no other stars of equal brilliance that close to each other anywhere in the night sky in the northern hemisphere.

The bright star to the right is Castor and the brighter shiner on the left is Pollux, which mark the heads of the twins Castor and Pollux.

Just look for semistraight line of stars below each star that outline the rest of Castor and Pollux's bodies. Yes they resemble stickmen.

They have a quite a mythological tale to weave and I'll get to it in just a bit but I have a little astronomical business I want to take up with you regarding the stars Castor and Pollux.

Starting with Pollux, I have to tell you that you're looking at one huge star. Now it's certainly not the largest in our heavens over Butler but it's a biggie!

Pollux is a puffed up version of our sun. It's believed to be younger than our closest star. Pollux is two times as massive as our sun but eight times the diameter, almost seven million miles in girth. It produces more than 30 times the light our Sun.

If you put Pollux in place of the sun in our solar system, you would need one thick, dark pair of sunglasses! As it is, Pollux is quite a bit farther away than the 93 million miles of our sun.

Pollux is more than 35 light years away, with just one year equaling nearly six trillion miles. Thus the light we see from Pollux tonight left that star in 1974, about the time President Nixon left the Whitehouse.

Often when we gaze upon a star in the heavens we're actually gazing upon more than one star. In fact, more than half the stars you see as single stars with your naked eye are actually multiple star systems, some with more than three or four members.

That's certainly the case when you look at Castor. It's actually made of three pairs of double stars. The individual stars in each pair orbit each other and all three pairs of stars orbit each other.

Can you imagine living on a planet that orbits one of these stars? You would have six sunrises and six sunsets each day!

In just about every culture the mythological story of the constellation Gemini and the stars Castor and Pollux involves a pair of individuals linked together in some way.

The story I know and love is the Greek and Roman tale that has the Castor and Pollux cast as twin brothers.

They were born at the same time but are not exactly twins. They have the same mother who was Leda, the Queen of Sparta, but they have two different fathers.

Who knows what happened but one night Zeus, the king of the gods of Mount Olympus wooed his way to Leda's heart and let's just say that they had one heck of a time.

Leda wasn't through that night because again, let's say that she and her husband, King Tyndarius spent some quality time together.

Nine months later Queen Leda gave birth to quadruplets, two boys and two girls. Pollux and Helen had Zeus as their father. Helen later in life became the famous Helen of Troy.

Meanwhile, Tyndarius was the daddy to Castor and Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra became the wife of Agamemnon the commander of the Greek forces of the Trojan War.

This birth event couldn't have done wonders for Leda's and Tyndarius marriage but then again with DNA testing several thousand years off maybe the king would never find out.

Anyway, Castor and Pollux were half brothers but were also were the best of buddies.

Castor grew up and became an accomplished horseman while Pollux became an accomplished boxer. They were also commissioned by Zeus to join Jason and the Argonauts in their search and capture of the Golden Fleece.

It was on that voyage that Castor met his demise as he was killed in battle and descended into the underworld. Pollux was inconsolable and longed to join his brother in the underworld someday.

But that could never happen because Castor's father Tyndarius was a mortal. That made Castor a mortal which allowed him to enter underworld.

Pollux's old man was Zeus which made him half god and half mortal. Being even half god meant he would never die and never get to see his brother in the hereafter.

Pollux begged his father Zeus to make a special arrangement. The king of gods gave his kid a break. Everyday Pollux was allowed to spend half the day with his half-brother in the underworld and the other half in this world.

Shortly after that compromise was struck, Poseidon, the god of the sea gave Castor and Pollux power over controlling the winds and waves which made them the patron of sailors at the time.

In fact even in the Bible in Chapter 28 of the Acts of the Apostles Gemini is mentioned. It's written that the Apostle Paul climbed aboard a pagan ship that bared the figures of Castor and Pollux.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, "Pennsylvania Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.