Welcome to Learn the Sky, your online resource for learning about the
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detail and need a guide, visit learnthesky.com to learn more about our online
classes we offer. Welcome! My name is Janine and welcome to Learn the Sky. In
this video we'll review the constellation known as Cassiopeia. It's a
very ancient constellation and one of the easiest to find for two reasons. Its
shape is easy to define and it can be seen all year round in the northern
hemisphere. There are other features of Cassiopeia that make this
constellation interesting. It points to many other objects and constellations
and it contains the brightest radio source in the sky. First, we'll review the
basics of Cassiopeia. She is a very ancient constellation. The Babylonians,
Persians, Egyptians, Chinese, Polynesians, Greeks, Romans and many other cultures
out there recognized this particular star pattern. The name Cassiopeia comes
from a figure in Greek mythology and she's represented as a queen. She is a
circumpolar constellation that can be used to help you find Polaris the North
Star. So, when can you see Cassiopeia? She can be seen all year round in the
northern hemisphere. You want to look for that 'w' asterism shape. The five
stars of Cassiopeia are of second magnitude, which makes it easy to point
out even in skies that have light pollution. When Cassiopeia is above
Polaris the 'W' shape would be inverted looking more like the letter 'M'.
Next, we'll take a very brief look at some of the mythology that surrounds the
constellation of Cassiopeia. The most well-known story would come from Greek
mythology and this is about the Queen Cassiopeia. She is wife of King
Cepheus. Cepheus is another constellation that can be seen right next to
Cassiopeia. The story goes that Queen Cassiopeia really boasted of her beauty
and this made the sea nymphs, or other spirits, jealous. Poseidon decided to
send Cetus, a sea monster, to destroy their kingdom.
Cetus is also another constellation that's in the sky.
Their daughter, Andromeda, was offered as a sacrifice to the monster in exchange
for saving the kingdom. Perseus heard her cries, Perseus, the Greek hero,
heard her cries and she was chained up on a rock near the ocean. Perseus was
the one that came in and saved her from certain doom from Cetus the sea
monster. Now, there are many variations of this story. It's very possible that
this story didn't even really come from Greek mythology, but was adapted from
another previous culture. There is another famous painting that's in the
the Louvre in Paris. It's called the "Rescuing of Andromeda". You can see
there's many characters featured here. You have Andromeda chained to the rock.
You have Pegasus right here. Perseus is the one that slayed Medusa. Here is
Cetus, he [Perseus] also took care of that beast. You have the Queen and Cepheus. Now,
as I say with every constellation- the mythologies of the stars vary
according to time, place and culture. There really is no one true mythology
for any constellation, just a variety of them. This particular story is one
that most people are familiar with, at least in Western society.
Now, let's take a look at the pattern and how we can use Cassiopeia to help us
find other constellations and objects in the sky. Here we have the official
star map. Hopefully you can notice that 'W' shape pattern. Remember all
the stars within this white boundary are considered part of the constellation of
Cassiopeia. When people think of constellations we often think of the
stars that we can connect dots with. But, in reality, a constellation is like a
border of a country. All these stars here are classified within that
constellation. If you need a review on that, go see that video. You can also see
all the stories, or the characters from the stories, that we talked about. We have
Cepheus; we have Perseus; we have Andromeda; Cetus is in the sky, but we
don't see it in this particular map. So, let's get some practice. Here you can see
Cassiopeia right in the center of the photograph towards the bottom and it
clearly makes that 'W' shaped pattern. If we take a look at another photo, we have
Cassiopeia right in the center. This time the 'W' is kind of oriented in like
the right-side up fashion. What I like about this photograph is that also shows
you the Milky Way behind Cassiopeia. The entire pattern does sit within the
Milky Way galaxy and kind of has that hazy look to it. So again, if you
need some assistance helping you find this pattern- there it is. Here is another
photograph and there's lots of constellations in here. Hopefully you can
find Cassiopeia oriented towards the upper center of this photograph. Are
you able to find that 'W' shape? Can you see the Milky Way behind it? If you can,
you can start to use it to help you find other objects. So here is Cassiopeia.
This portion- right here- this portion of the constellation can help you find a
galaxy. You can use it to aim you down towards what we call the Andromeda
Galaxy. We zoom up on this- this is what Andromeda looks like.
You can see this galaxy without any magnification if you just know where to
look know where to look. Use Cassiopeia to direct you towards it.
This galaxy is so fascinating, because it's our closest spiral galaxy.
It's estimated to be two million light years away and it's twice the size of
our own Milky Way galaxy. It is the oldest light you'll ever see with your
naked eye, because it takes two million years for light to reach us.
So again, Cassiopeia. Use this portion to aim you down towards this fuzzy patch in
the sky. Then, here, is one version of the pattern of Andromeda. We also have
Perseus over here and we have a portion of Cepheus right in this corner.
Cassiopeia is just one of those constellations that if you can find this
one you can find other things. If you are trying to find the Andromeda Galaxy,
I definitely recommend that you seek out dark skies. We can also use Cassiopeia to
find other constellations, or one very important star, known as Polaris. That is
the North Star and it's a star that doesn't move in our sky. If you're
looking at this photo, Cassiopeia is towards the upper left side of the
photograph. If you can find Cassiopeia use it to help you find
Cepheus, right here. So, Cepheus kind of has this house shape pattern to it.
Then, you can also use it to help you find the North Star. You use that
center star of Cassiopeia and the shape kind of directs you like an arrow
towards Polaris the North Star. Then, here we see the Little Dipper.
So again Cassiopeia is just one of those really helpful constellations to help
you find other things in the sky. We'll take a look at one more photo to help
you get more familiar with, not only this constellation, but everything else
surrounding it. So this is a very large sky view of not only Cassiopeia, but we
can see Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco is in here, Cepheus is in here, we have
Hercules, Boötes, all kinds of constellations. But, can you find
Cassiopeia? It's that 'W' shape. It kind of looks like
the number three in the way it's oriented here. It's towards the
upper right side of the photograph. So, let's not dance around it. Let's find out
where everything is, because this is how you get practice- by looking at
photographs and then trying to translate it into a bigger sky when you go outside.
Here we have Cassiopeia that's our focus for this video. Remember you
can use this kind of center star to kind of point you in the direction towards
Ursa Minor. Here's the North Star. Here's the handle and the cup of the
Little Dipper. Then down here is Ursa Major. We're only
seeing the Big Dipper asterism here. But you can use these two stars and Ursa
Major to point to you towards the the North Star. Then we have
Draco right here. Draco's not always easy to find, but its
tail winds in between the dippers. So, that's a way to help you find it. We have
Cepheus right here. Kind of looks like a upside-down house in this picture.
The other constellation we can see are Hercules, Corona
Borealis, and Boötes. So, lots to see in this particular constellation. I actually
can find the Andromeda Galaxy. We use this part and it's
really hard to see, but it's that little fuzzy patch right there. If there weren't
some clouds here and be easier to see. But, remember to use this this pattern to
just help you find everything else in the sky. In the last portion of this
video we'll take a look at some of the celestial objects that sit within
Cassiopeia. Here we have a map just showing you in greater detail all the
celestial objects. We have some nebulae that we'll take a look at. The red dots
are galaxies and the rest are star clusters that are dotted throughout this
constellation. We're not going to get to cover everything, but here's just
a taste of the different types of objects you'll see. We have star clusters,
we have nebulae as well, and then even this very unique galaxy right here.
Let's get started one object that isn't really shown in the map, but is what
we're talking about is called Cassiopeia A. This is a supernova remnant and
it's known for being the brightest extrasolar radio source in the sky. A
supernova is a star that has come towards the end of its life and it
literally has blown up. So if you're trying to find where this region is in
the sky- we have the Cassiopeia pattern and then it's kind of located right near
this one end star. Now, if we would point our telescopes in this direction it
wouldn't really look like this. This picture is really a combination of
different types of electromagnetic radiation such as x-rays, infrared,
and visible light. But, this is what this object looks like in visible light.
in terms of the visible light spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation. You
can just see it looks like it was blown up. This shows it even more. This area
is just known for being that very bright radio source that can be seen in the sky, or
heard I guess I should say. Next we have Messier 52. This is an open star
cluster and it's located in this region between
Cassiopeia and Cepheus, so you can kind of use draw a line right from these two
stars to help you find it. Really close to this star cluster is the Bubble
Nebula. This is an emission nebula that I think it's just fascinating to really
take a look at and observe. You can clearly see why it's called the Bubble
Nebula. If we zoom out- what we're seeing is that this particular
star is really just lighting up this whole this whole region. Of course
you can see all these this interesting gas coming through because Cassiopeia,
like I said, sits in the Milky Way galaxy. The next area I want to bring your
attention to is right here. Here is the Heart Nebula and the Soul Nebula. I love
looking at pictures of these, they're really spectacular. The heart nebula is
an emission nebula estimated to be 7,500 light years away. Nebulas often get
their names based upon their shape, so here you can kind of see a heart shape.
If we zoom into other areas there's some interesting objects to see. This
area kind of looks like a star cluster. We have some really bright areas right
here and this is really just half of the heart that we're looking at. When we look
at the Soul Nebula- this is also the same distance away. When you zoom in here
you can just see some really fascinating objects or really fascinating features
that really suggest star formation is happening. Especially with these
pillars right here. Remember many of these these photos are digitally altered
in terms of color and scientists do this in order to see the different
features that that can shine through the photographs. This was taken with a
NASA sized Telescope, the Spitzer telescope. As scientists look at it
to see what are the features, what story are we learning about
this particular region just by observing the pictures. One final object I wanted
to share with you is called IC 10. It's located right in between these
three stars, right here, of Cassiopeia. IC10 is an irregular galaxy and it's
actually classified as a starburst galaxy, which i think is really
interesting. Starburst galaxies are galaxies that have an unusual amount of
supernovae happening inside them. There's a lot of stuff going on here in
this particular galaxy. It is classified as regular, which means it
doesn't have any particular shape. It's fairly close to us as well at 2.2
million light-years away. We've come to the end of this video
about Cassiopeia the Queen, so let's review everything we learned so far. This
constellation is one that can be seen all year round in the northern
hemisphere, which classifies it as a circumpolar constellation because it
circles around the pole star or Polaris. The best way to find it is to look for
the 'W' shape or sometimes it's an 'M' shape based upon its orientation in the sky.
It's close to another constellation called Cepheus, which we heard about in
the mythologies about Cassiopeia. It's also a great constellation to point
out. There are lots of celestial objects to observe within the
boundaries of Cassiopeia. There's open star clusters,
there's nebulae, and galaxies all surrounding this constellation.
That's because Cassiopeia sits right within the Milky Way galaxy. So, I hope
you learned some tips to help you find this constellation. It's one it's one of
the easier ones to point out, but even though it's easy to point out there's
still a lot to discover about this star pattern and all the objects that sit
within its boundaries. I wish you luck and keep looking up!