A minimum 250mm (10-inch) scope is recommended. Splitting the pair requires decent aperture, steady seeing conditions and quite high magnifications. It's also a very challenging optical double with a faint 11th magnitude yellow-white ( F6) dwarf companion, separation 2.1 arc seconds. The star is a spectroscopic double with an orbital period of about 204 days. It was also given the nickname Navi by American astronaut Gus Grissom, who used it for navigational purposes. However, in Chinese it has the name Tsih meaning the whip. Unusual for a bright star it has no traditional Arabic or Latin name. Gamma Cassiopeiae is the middle star of the W and is located 613 light-years from Earth. It currently shines at magnitude +2.15 and therefore marginally the constellation's brightest star. This behaviour causes it to vary unpredictably between magnitudes +1.6 and +3.0. Rotating at high speed it's partly unstable and ejects rings of material at irregular intervals. Gamma Cassiopeiae (γ Cas) - a remarkable blue giant variable star known as a shell star.
#NEBULA IN CASSIOPEIA PDF#
It lies near open cluster M52.Ĭassiopeia Star Chart - pdf format (credit:- freestarcharts) The remains of another supernova, which erupted around 1660, but went unseen at the time forms the brightest extrasolar radio source in the sky, known as Cassiopeia A.
The famous supernova outburst of 1572, observed by Tycho Brahe, occurred near the star kappa (κ) Cassiopeiae. Positioned on the opposite side of the North Celestial Pole is another famous constellation, Ursa Major, the Great Bear.Ĭassiopeia is bordered by Andromeda to the south, Perseus to the southeast and Cepheus to the north. From Southern Hemisphere latitudes, the constellation appears low above the northern horizon or never even rises at all. It appears highest in the sky during October, November and December. For larger scopes there are four faint nebulae within range.įrom most northern temperate latitudes, Cassiopeia is circumpolar and therefore visible all year round. At Cassiopeia's southern end there are three faint galaxies, two of which are dwarfs and members of the M31 Group. In addition, there are some beautiful double stars and interesting variable stars. It contains over a dozen bright open clusters visible in small scopes.
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Since located right bang at the centre of the rich northern Milky Way, Cassiopeia is full of wonderful deep-sky objects. Variable star γ Cas can peak at magnitude +1.6 and when it does it's easily the brightest member but currently it hovers around magnitude +2.15. This asterism forms part of the chair and consists of γ Cas ( mag.(v) +1.6 -> +3.0), Schedar (α Cas - mag. It's one of the most recognisable constellations due to the distinctive W shape of its five brightest stars. The constellation is one of the original 48 plotted by second century astronomer Ptolemy and remains as one of the 88 modern constellations.
Although Andromeda lived to marry Perseus, Poseidon deemed that Cassiopeia should not escape punishment and banished her to the sky forever, tied to the chair of torture! However, just in time, the hero Perseus arrived to save Andromeda and in the process killed the sea monster. The princess was left helplessly chained to a rock at the sea edge, awaiting her fate at the hands of Cetus, the sea monster. This brought the wrath of the ruling god of the sea Poseidon who decided to destroy the kingdom.Īfter consulting a wise oracle, the only way the King and Queen could stop Poseidon from carrying out his threat was to scarify Andromeda. Legend has it she claimed both her and her daughter, Andromeda, were more beautiful than all the Nereids the nymph-daughters of the sea god Nereus. In Greek mythology, the Queen was arrogant and extremely boastful about her beauty. Cassiopeia is a prominent northern constellation named after Queen Cassiopeia, the wife of King Cepheus of Ethiopia.
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