A whirling double-star, the Cook Islands and a pointillist

Our children think we’re eccentric, but at the weekends we copy the large general knowledge crossword from the newspaper so we can each have a go at it. Usually my husband gets more right than I do – he knows more about music and there always seem to be more music questions than literature which I know more about. Every week, however there are a few which stump both of us. This week I ‘beat’ him, but we were both totally bamboozled by some of them.

Here are the ones which I had, in the end, to look up:

• the capital of the Cook Islands (I did guess this and by a fluke got it right) – 9 letters
• whirling double-star distorted into an egg-shape by gravity which is the brightest body in Virgo – 5 letters
• gems worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s  and often by designer Gabrielle Chanel (I can’t believe i didn’t get this one!)  – 6 letters
• species of thrush sometimes singing during the night or at dusk – 9 letters
• type of courtyard within a cloister at the centre of a medieval monastery – 5 letters
• the Furnace constellation – 6 letters
• French pointillist who painted Breakfast, The Milliner, and Sunday (not Seurat!) – 6
• metaphor in which an object is used to describe something closely related to it – 7 letters
• a calyx and corolla collectively – 8 letters
• word linking ‘leet for a jargon originally developed by hackers – 5 letters
• My featured image by the way is for a leat – not leet as in the last clue!