| Constellation | |
List of stars in Cassiopeia |
|
| Abbreviation | Cas |
|---|---|
| Genitive | Cassiopeiae |
| Pronunciation | /ˌkæsi.ɵˈpiː.ə/ Cássiopéia, colloquially /ˌkæsiˈoʊpiː.ə/ Cássiópeia; genitive /ˌkæsi.ɵˈpiː.iː/ |
| Symbolism | the Seated Queen |
| Right ascension | 1 h |
| Declination | +60° |
| Quadrant | NQ1 |
| Area | 598 sq. deg. (25th) |
| Main stars | 5 |
| Bayer/Flamsteed stars |
53 |
| Stars with planets | 3 |
| Stars brighter than 3.00m | 4 |
| Stars within 10.00 pc (32.62 ly) | 7 |
| Brightest star | α Cas (Schedar) (2.15m) |
| Nearest star | η Cas (Achird) (19.42 ly, 5.95 pc) |
| Messier objects | 2 |
| Meteor showers | Perseids |
| Bordering constellations |
Camelopardalis Cepheus Lacerta Andromeda Perseus |
| Visible at latitudes between +90° and −20°. Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month of November. |
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Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. Cassiopea was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. It is easily recognizable due to its distinctive 'W' shape, formed by five bright stars. It is bordered by Andromeda to the south, Perseus to the southeast, and Cepheus to the north. She is opposite the Big Dipper, and from northern latitudes can be seen at her clearest in early November.
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Cassiopeia contains two stars visible to the naked eye that rank among the most luminous in the galaxy: ρ Cas and V509 Cas, both of the extremely rare class of yellow hypergiants. The star η Cas is a nearby (19.4 ly) binary star comprising a yellow Sun-like dwarf and an orange dwarf star.
Within the 'W' asterism formed by Cassiopeia’s five major stars lies Cassiopeia A (Cas A). It is the remnant of a supernova that took place approximately 300 years ago (as observed now from Earth 11,000 light-years away), and has the distinction of being the strongest radio source observable outside our solar system. It was perhaps observed as a faint star in 1680 by John Flamsteed. It was also the subject of the first image returned by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in the late 1990s. The five main stars that make up the distinctive "W" shape are shown in this table
| Hipparcos | Greek Letter | Proper Name |
Solar Radii | Apparent Magnitude |
~Distance (L Yrs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HIP 746 | β beta | Caph | 2.2 | 2.25 | 54.46 |
| HIP 3179 | α alpha | Shedir | 42 | 2.2 | 228.56 |
| HIP 4427 | γ gamma | Tsih | 11 | 2.15 | 613.08 |
| HIP 6686 | δ delta | Ruchbah | 1.7 | 2.65 | 99.41 |
| HIP 8886 | ε epsilon | Segin | 7 | 3.35 | 441.95 |
Two Messier objects, Messier 52 (NGC 7654) and Messier 103 (NGC 581), are located in Cassiopeia. Both are open clusters and being 7th apparent magnitude objects they are easy targets with binoculars.
If one were able to observe Earth's Sun from Alpha Centauri, the closest star to our solar system, it would appear in Cassiopeia as a yellow-white 0.5 magnitude star. The famous W of Cassiopeia would become a zig-zag pattern with the Sun at the leftmost end, closest to ε Cas.
The constellation is named after Cassiopeia, a queen in Greek mythology. Cassiopeia was the wife of King Cepheus, and became jealous of the beauty of their daughter Andromeda, who was very beautiful. When she boasted for her beauty, Poseidon, the sea god, sentenced Andromeda to be tied to a rock with a sea monster awaiting her. The hero Perseus defeated the monster, and claimed her as his wife,[1] but Cepheus and Cassiopea preferred her to marry another man, Phineus. In the ensuing battle, Perseus slew his opposers, and Cepheus and Cassiopeia were placed next to each other among the stars by Poseidon, Cassiopeia being placed upside down for half the year because of her vanity.[2]
In another tradition, Cassiopeia was a consort of the god Zeus,[3] and had a son named Atymnios with whom two men fell in love. Cassiopeia was hung upside down in a chair in the stars upon her death.[3]
In Chinese astronomy, the stars forming the constellation Cassiopeia are found among three areas: the Purple Forbidden enclosure (紫微垣, Zǐ Wēi Yuán), the Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武, Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ), and the White Tiger of the West (西方白虎, Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ).
In Arabic culture, the stars that form Cassiopeia are depicted as a camel.
Other cultures see a hand or moose antlers in the pattern.[4]
The Cuban artist Silvio Rodríguez wrote a song to Cassiopeia just after almost dying in a car crash.
Rock group Third Eye Blind mentions Cassiopeia in their song "Bonfire" and companion song "Lightning Comes, Goes".
Shabutie (now Coheed and Cambria) wrote a song called Cassiopeia on their "Penelope EP"
Also, the Korean group TVXQ's fanbase was named after this constellation because of the positioning of the letters TVfXQ (a variant of their group name) resembled that of the constellation. The official TVXQ Korean fanclub (Cassiopeia) was in the 2008 Guinness world records for largest official fanclub in the world.
The constellation features in the storyline of the 2001 film Serendipity.
The binary star that is the main star of the constellation, features as setting for at least a part of Charles Sheffield's 1985 Science Fiction novel, Between the Strokes of Night.
On Joanna Newsom's independent label debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender, released on March 23, 2004 on by Drag City, the eighth song is titled Cassiopeia. It runs 3:20min.
Consumer electronics company Casio used Cassiopeia as the name for a line of Pocket PCs running Microsoft's Windows CE in the late 90s.
The constellation is mentioned in the movie Spartan by Val Kilmer while pointing out North on a map.
It is mentioned in the movie Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981) as a sign of the second coming of Christ.
Cassiopeia is mentioned in the Broadway musical In the Heights during the song "Paciencia y Fe (Patience and Faith)".
Cassiopeia is the name of a song by the band Dragonland, on their album "Astronomy".
Cassiopeia is also the name of a champion in the DotA game League of Legends.
Cassiopeia is the title of the first track on the album "Under the Silver of Machines (2007)" by the Alt Rock band Last Winter.
In the 1974 USSR movie Otroki vo Vselennoy (Teens in the Universe), 7 teenage kids from Soviet Russia ( all Russians) crossed the interstellar space to land on the planet (orbiting Schedar, Alpha Cassiopeiae) to save its human population from enslaving robots.
In the french animated TV series Once Upon a Time... Space, the main antagonist is the military republic of Cassiopeé (Cassiopeia in french), whose symbol is the VV formed by the brightest stars of that constellation.
In the original Super Sentai series, Himitsu Sentai Goranger, Cassiopeia is the weakness of the main antagonist, the Black Cross Führer.
In May 2011, Israeli air traffic controllers dispatched two warplanes and two attack helicopters to investigate what they thought were suspicious lights in the sky. After observing the suspicious "enemy aircraft", the pilots confirmed that these were the stars of the Cassiopeia constellation.[5]
USS Cassiopeia (AK-75) was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the constellation.
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