There are stellar remains in Cassiopeia too: supernova remnants. To see a few more stars, you can pick up a pair of binoculars to look at Messier 103, an open cluster of stars whose light has taken over 8,000 years to reach us. This fast spin means that Beta Cas is an “oblate spheroid”-its equator bulges outward, the same way a balloon would if you pressed it between your hands.
The constellation cassiopeia full#
Beta Cas is a star that completes one full rotation every 1.12 Earth days. Let’s start with one of those five main stars. Hiding in the depths of the night sky, we find a plethora of objects begging to be explored. If we look a little closer in Cassiopeia, we’ll find that there’s more to this constellation than meets the eye. But a constellation is more than just the main stars to astronomers, a constellation is one of 88 defined regions of our sky. Cassiopeia has five main stars, whose Greek names are Epsilon, Delta, Gamma, Alpha, and Beta-all followed by ‘Cas’ for Cassiopeia.
When we look at the stars that make up the constellation, they form a W or M shape across the belt of the Milky Way. She’s said to be the ancient queen of a land near Ethiopia, eternally punished for her vanity and ego. Cassiopeia is one of the brightest constellations in our northern sky. Not too far away from it is a constellation with a distinctive shape-Cassiopeia. The big dipper (Ursa Major) is a popular one here in Minnesota. If you go outside on a clear night and look up, you’ll likely recognize a few shapes.