- Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country mostly in Central Asia, with a part in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, with a coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, while the largest city and leading cultural and commercial hub is Almaty. Kazakhstan is the world’s ninth-largest country by land area and the largest landlocked country. It has a population of 20 million and one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (16 people/sq mi). Ethnic Kazakhs constitute a majority, while ethnic Russians form a significant minority. Officially secular, Kazakhstan is a Muslim-majority country, although ethnic Russians in the country form a sizeable Christian community.
- How to find and observe Almach (TOTS#6) (eyesonthesky.com)
Gamma Andromedae is a rather interesting double star within our own Milky Way galaxy. First, the primary is a very yellow star, and the secondary an intense blue. At over 350 light years distance, the light from these stars reaching us today left not long after Christian Huygens proposed that Saturn had rings… in the 1600’s! But the star gets even stranger. The dimmer blue secondary is itself a double star, averaging a Sun/Neptune distance. Stranger still, the primary of THAT system is ALSO double! So Gamma Andromedae is really a quadruple star system.
