Constellations · Constellation · Cassiopeiae · Cas
Constellation
Cassiopeia
The vain queen, bound to her throne and swung upside down around the pole every night as her punishment. Her W never sets from most of the north.
- Genitive
- Cassiopeiae
- Area
- 598 square degrees · 25th of 88
- Brightest star
- Cih · magnitude 2.15
- Naked-eye stars
- 160 brighter than magnitude 6.5
- Highest at midnight
- mid September
Myth
Cassiopeia boasted that she, or her daughter Andromeda, was lovelier than the sea nymphs. Poseidon placed her in the sky where half the night she hangs head-down.
History
In November 1572 a new star blazed up here, brighter than Venus. Tycho Brahe measured that it did not move against the stars — proof that the heavens beyond the Moon could change.
Look for
Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper face each other across Polaris: when one is low, the other is high, so one of them is always easy to find.