Cassiopeia: The Starry Queen in the North

Look to the north after sunset, and you can find a starry queen sitting in her throne among the stars. Cassiopeia is easy to find in the late summer and fall, but is visible all year in most of the northern hemisphere.

Can you find the Big Dipper? How about a sideways 'W' on the opposite side of the North Star? Image: Stellarium and Me

To find Cassiopeia, look for a zigzag group of 5 bright stars in the north. Depending on the time of the year, it can look like a 'M' or a 'W'. In the late summer, it is sideways. Try to find it in the image above, in the northeast. Click on the image to see it larger. 

Cassiopeia is the sideways 'W' shape on the opposite side of the North Star as the Big Dipper.

The five bright stars in Cassiopeia are easy to see, even in a city with light pollution. It might be a bit harder to imagine how a 'W' shape represents a queen. According to Greek mythology, this constellation represents the a beautiful queen of Ethiopia, sitting in her throne. She was so taken with her own beauty that she boasted she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. This set off a terrible chain of events endangering her daughter Andromeda. You can read more about Andromeda's story in this post.

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

The 'W' shape in the stars was not seen as a queen by all cultures. The Lapps people, who lived in modern day northern Europe, saw elk antlers in the stars here, and the Chukchi of Siberia saw five reindeer stags in the sky. Cultures all over the world used the stars to illustrate their many different myths and legends. 

In 1572, the astronomer Tycho Brahe glanced up on an evening walk and noticed a new star in the sky near Cassiopeia. At the time, it was widely believed that the heavens were perfect and unchanging, so this appearance of a new star was shocking.  He was so intrigued by this apparition that he devoted his life to charting the stars and planets with precise measurements. We now know that what Tycho observed was a star going supernova. It's remnant, Cassiopeia A, is the strongest radio source outside of our Solar System. 

A false color image of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) using observations from both the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes as well as the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Image Source

Look to the north on the next clear night, and I bet you can find Cassiopeia. The five bright stars in the constellation shine brightly. You can learn about constellations any time in the Dome Planetarium at the Peoria Riverfront Museum. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for daily updates! 

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