Cassiopeia (constellation)

Cassiopeia

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. Photographed Oct. 1st, 2004 from near N41° W73° by Randal J.

Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. Cassiopeia 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.

Notable features

Stars

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

Cassiopeia in her chair, as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825.

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

Deep-sky objects

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.

The Sun would appear close to Cassiopeia from Alpha Centauri

Pattern from Alpha Centauri

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.

Mythology

Main article: Cassiopeia (mythology)

The constellation is named after Cassiopeia, a queen (in astrology). Cassiopeia was the daughter of King Cepheus, whom married Lepus the Hare. She was caring and helped the poor. She also lived on a mountain and was hard to find. Cepheus and Cassiopeia were placed next to each other among the stars, the King by his Queen and only daughter the golden hare.

Equivalents

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.

In popular culture

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^{[citation needed]}.

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 [Moba] 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 Gorenger, Cassiopeia's cosmic rays are the weakness of the main antagonist, the Black Cross Führer, and the names of the Gorengers themselves (with the exception of a temporary replacement for one of them) begin with one of the kana for Cassiopeia.

In the news

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.

Namesakes

USS Cassiopeia (AK-75) was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the constellation.

See also

• IC 10 – dwarf galaxy
• SN 1572 – Tycho's Star or Tycho's Supernova - B Cassiopeiae
• Cepheus XR-1 - radio source actually in Cass.
• Cassiopeia (Chinese astronomy)

References

• Krause O; Rieke GH; Birkmann SM; Le Floc'h E; Gordon KD; Egami E; Bieging J; Hughes JP, Young ET, Hinz JL, Quanz SP, Hines DC (2005). "Infrared echoes near the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A". Science 308 (5728): 1604–6. arXiv:astro-ph/0506186. Bibcode 2005Sci...308.1604K. doi:10.1126/science.1112035. PMID 15947181. 
• Ian Ridpath; Wil Tirion (2007). Stars and Planets Guide. London: Collins. ISBN 978-0007251209.  . Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691135564. 

External links

• The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Cassiopeia
• The clickable Cassiopeia
• Star Tales – Cassiopeia
• Cassiopeia Constellation