Cassiopeia is a constellation in the Northern Hemisphere. In this article I hope to cover some of the interesting objects that can be found in this region of space.

The constellation is recognisable from the fact it has a W shape. Cassiopeia can be found near to Perseus and Andromeda.

You can download a starmap (taken from Kstars) here

For the purpose of this article I will be using the K-stars package.

Principle Stars These appear in Kstars. I have set the software to display objects fainter than Magnitude (m) 5.0.

• Caph (2.3m)
• Schedar (2.3m)
• Navi (2.2m)
• Ruchbah (2.7m)
• Segib (3.3m)

Other Stars

$\eta$ Cassiopeiae (3.5m) $\zeta$ Cassiopeiae (3.7m) $\kappa$ Cassiopeiae (4.2m) $\theta$ Cassiopeiae (4.3m) $\nu$ Cassiopeiae (1) (3.5m) $\nu$ Cassiopeiae (2) (4.7m) $\iota$ Cassiopeiae (4.6m) $\omega$ Cassiopeiae (4.9m) $\psi$ Cassiopeiae (4.8m) $\pi$ Cassiopeiae (5.0m) $\xi$ Cassiopeiae (4.8m) $\lambda$ Cassiopeiae (4.7m) $\rho$ Cassiopeiae (4.6m) $\sigma$ Cassiopeiae (5.0m) $\varphi$ Cassiopeiae (5.1m) $\chi$ Cassiopeiae (4.8m) $\mu$ Cassiopeiae (5.2m)

Data from Kstars application.

The constellation also has many objects such as open clusters.

The Owl Cluster (NGC 457) is close to the star $\varphi$ Cassiopeiae.

There are no galaxies within the constellation but star $\zeta$ Cassiopeiae (3.7m) appears to be the closest to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).

You can see the milkyway behind the constellation. This could explain the number of open clusters in the region. However this is more speculation as I am not an expert on this.

References:

• K-stars Astronomy Package
• Stellarium Astronomy Package

#astronony, #constellation, #Cassiopeia, #kstars

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KSTARS is a Linux based astronomy package. For a free software package it has a lot of features and downloadable catalogues of stellar objects.

When you first load up the package you may want to view the constellation lines. I worked out how to do this, but am including some info below to help users change the line colour from the default light grey as it may be easier for people to see the lines.

If you click on Settings (menu) —> configure —> guides

You should get the following

I have checked the boxes to constellation:-

• lines
• boundaries.
• names

If you then click on the colours tab at the side

I have set the colour to yellow. This does stand out, probably a little too much. However you can set it to the colour of your choosing or leave as the default grey.

The end result of this is (download):

• Orion Star Map

Hope this helps

#software, #astronomy, #science, #kde, #linux, #freesoftware, #setup, #configuration, #constellation, #linecolor, #boundaries, #names.

You can find me on Friendica at zleap@social.isurf.ca

Licenced under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Mastodon	ShellLabs	Join Mastodon

AI statement : Consent is NOT granted to use the content of this blog for the purposes of AI training or similar activity. Consent CANNOT be assumed, it has to be granted.