Given an odd surjective Galois representation $\varrho\from \G_\Q\to\PGL_2(\F_3)$ and a positive integer~$N$, there exists a twisted modular curve $X(N,3)_\varrho$ defined over $\Q$ whose rational points classify the quadratic $\Q$-curves of degree $N$ realizing~$\varrho$. This paper gives a method to provide an explicit plane quartic model for this curve in the genus-three case $N=5$.

For a modular elliptic curve $E/\mathbb{Q}$, we show a number of links between the primes $\ell$ for which the mod $\ell$ representation of $E/\mathbb{Q}$ has projective dihedral image and congruence primes for the newform associated to $E/\mathbb{Q}$.