Кассиопея: мифы, история и звезды созвездия

Constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere

The constellation is named after Cassiopeia, the queen of Aethiopia. Cassiopeia was the wife of King Cepheus of Aethiopia She was forced to wheel around the north celestial pole on her throne, spending half of her time clinging to it so she does not fall off, and Poseidon decreed that Andromeda should be bound to a rock as prey for the monster Cetus. Andromeda was then rescued by the hero Perseus, whom she later married. Cassiopeia has been variously portrayed throughout her history as a constellation. In Persia, she was drawn by al Sufi as a queen holding a staff with a crescent moon in her right hand, wearing a crown, as well as a two humped camel. In France, she was portrayed as having a marble throne and a palm leaf in her left hand, holding her robe in her right hand. This depiction is from Augustin Royer's 1679 atlas. In the 17th century, various Biblical figures were depicted in the stars of Cassiopeia. These included Bathsheba, Solomon's mother; Deborah, an Old Testament prophet; and Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus. These include the Sámi, for whom the W of Cassiopeia forms an elk antler. The Chukchi of Siberia similarly saw the five main stars as five reindeer stags.

Cassiopeia had a supernova, Cassiopeia A, SN 1572. Covering 598.4 square degrees and hence 1.451% of the sky, Cassiopeia ranks 25th of the 88 constellations in area. It is bordered by Cepheus to the north and west, Andromeda to the south and west, Perseus to the southeast and Camelopardalis to the east, and also shares a short border with Lacerta to the west. The three letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Cas". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 30 segments. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between 77.69° and 46.68°. Its position in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers north of 12°S.

The German cartographer Johann Bayer used the Greek letters Alpha through Omega, and then A and B, to label the most prominent 26 stars in the constellation. Upsilon was later found to be two stars and labelled Upsilon1 and Upsilon2 by John Flamsteed. B Cassiopeiae was in fact the supernova known as Tycho's Supernova. Within the constellation's borders, there are 157 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5. With a luminosity of around 771 times that of the Sun, it has swollen and cooled after exhausting its core hydrogen over its 100 to 200 million year lifespan, spending much of it as a blue white B type main sequence star. Magnitude 8.9 yellow dwarf companion (B) is widely separated; companions (C and D) are closer and magnitudes 13 and 14 respectively. Beta Cassiopeiae, or Caph (meaning "hand"), is a white hued star of magnitude 2.3, 54.7 ± 0.3 light years from Earth. It is a Delta Scuti variable with a small amplitude and period of 2.5 hours. Gamma Cassiopeiae is the prototype Gamma Cassiopeiae variable star, a type of variable star that has a variable disc of material flung off by the high rotation rate of the star. Gamma Cassiopeiae has a minimum magnitude of 3.0 and a maximum magnitude of 1.6, but is generally near magnitude 2.2, with unpredictable fades and brightenings. It is a spectroscopic binary, with an orbital period of 203.59 days and a companion with a calculated mass about the same as the Sun. However, no direct evidence of this companion has been found, leading to speculation that it might be a white dwarf or other degenerate star. It is 550 ± 10 light years from Earth. Delta Cassiopeiae, also known as Ruchbah or Rukbat, meaning "knee," is a possible Algol type eclipsing binary star with a maximum brightness of magnitude 2.7. It has been reported to show eclipses of less than 0.1 magnitudes with a period of 2 years and 1 month., but this has never been confirmed. It is 99.4 ± 0.4 light years from Earth.

The next seven brightest stars in Cassiopeia are also all confirmed or suspected variable stars, including 50 Cassiopeiae which was not given a Greek letter by Bayer and is a suspected variable with a very small amplitude. Zeta Cassiopeiae (Fulu) is a suspected slowly pulsating B type star. Eta Cassiopeiae (Achird It is a runaway star, moving at around 2.5 million mph relative to its neighbors (1,100 kilometers per second). Its magnetic field and wind of particles creates a visible bow shock 4 light years ahead of it, colliding with the diffuse, and usually invisible, interstellar gas and dust. The dimensions of the bow shock are vast: around 12 light years long and 1.8 light years wide. Theta Cassiopeiae, named Marfak, is a suspected variable star whose brightness changes by less than a tenth of a magnitude. Iota Cassiopeiae is a triple star 142 light years from Earth. The primary is a white hued star of magnitude 4.5 and an α2 Canum Venaticorum variable, the secondary is a yellow hued star of magnitude 6.9, and the tertiary is a star of magnitude 8.4. The primary and secondary are close together but the primary and tertiary are widely separated. Omicron Cassiopeiae is a triple star and the primary is another γ Cassiopeiae variable. Sigma Cassiopeiae is a binary star 1500 light years from Earth. It has a green hued primary of magnitude 5.0 and a blue hued secondary of magnitude 7.3. Psi Cassiopeiae is a triple star 193 light years from Earth. The primary is an orange hued giant star of magnitude 4.7 and the secondary is a close pair of stars that appears to be of magnitude 9.0. Rho Cassiopeiae is a semi regular pulsating variable yellow hypergiant, and is among the most luminous stars in the galaxy at approximately It has a minimum magnitude of 6.2 and a maximum magnitude of 4.1; its period is approximately 320 days. It has around 450 times the Sun's diameter and 17 times its mass, having begun life 45 times as massive as the Sun. Rho Cassiopeiae is about 10,000 light years from Earth. Cassiopeia includes V509 Cassiopeiae, a second example of the extremely rare yellow hypergiants, which is around 400,000 times as luminous as the Sun and 14 times as massive, Between 240,000 and 270,000 times as luminous as the Sun, it is around 9,160 light years distant from Earth. AO Cassiopeiae is a binary system composed of an O8 main sequence star and an O9.2 bright giant that respectively weigh anywhere between 20.30 and 57.75 times and 14.8 and 31.73 times the mass of the Sun. The two massive stars are so close to each other they distort each other into egg shapes. Tycho Brahe's supernova was visible within Cassiopeia, and the star Tycho G is suspected of being the donor of the material that triggered that explosion.

A rich section of the Milky Way runs through Cassiopeia, stretching from Perseus towards Cygnus, and it contains a number of open clusters, young luminous galactic disc stars, and nebulae. The Heart Nebula and the Soul Nebula are two neighboring emission nebulae about 7,500 light years away. Two Messier objects, M52 (NGC 7654) and M103 (NGC 581), are located in Cassiopeia; both are open clusters. M52, once described as a "kidney shaped" cluster, contains approximately 100 stars and is 4600 light years from Earth. Its most prominent member is an orange hued star of magnitude 8.0 near the cluster's edge. M103 is far poorer than M52, with only about 25 stars included. It is also more distant, between 8000 and 9500 light years from Earth. Its most prominent member is actually a closer, superimposed double star; it consists of a 7th magnitude primary and 10th magnitude secondary. The other prominent open clusters in Cassiopeia are NGC 457 and NGC 663, both of which have about 80 stars. NGC 457 is looser, and its brightest member is Phi Cassiopeiae, a white hued supergiant star of magnitude 5.0. However, it is uncertain whether Phi Cassiopeiae is part of the open cluster or not. The stars of NGC 457, arrayed in chains, are approximately 10,000 light years from Earth. NGC 663 is both closer, at 8200 light years from Earth, and larger, at 0.25 degrees in diameter. There are two supernova remnants in Cassiopeia. The first, designated 3C 10 or just Tycho's Supernova Remnant, is the aftermath of the supernova called Tycho's Star. It was observed in 1572 by Tycho Brahe and now exists as a bright object in the radio spectrum. Within the 'W' asterism formed by Cassiopeia's five major stars lies Cassiopeia A (Cas A). It is the remnant of a supernova that took place approximately 300 years ago (as observed now from Earth; it is 10,000 light years away), and has the distinction of being the strongest radio source observable outside the Solar System. It was perhaps observed as a faint star in 1680 by John Flamsteed. It was also the subject of the first image returned by the Chandra X Ray Observatory in the late 1990s. The shell of matter expelled from the star is moving at per second; it has a temperature of 30,000 kelvins on average. Cassiopeia also contains part of the closest galaxy group to our Local Group, the IC 342/Maffei Group. The galaxies Maffei 1 and Maffei 2 are located just to the south of the Heart and Soul nebulae. As a result of this location in the Zone of Avoidance, both are surprisingly faint despite both being within 10 million light years away (Maffei 2 is below the range of most amateur telescopes).

The December Phi Cassiopeiids are a recently discovered early December meteor shower that radiates from Cassiopeia. Phi Cassiopeiids are very slow, with an entry velocity of approximately 16.7 kilometers per second. The shower's parent body is a Jupiter family comet, though its specific identity is unknown.

USS Cassiopeia (AK 75) was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the constellation. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the villainous team, Team Star, is divided into five squads named after the brightest stars in the constellation: Segin Squad, Schedar Squad, Ruchbah Squad, Navi Squad, and Caph Squad. The group's leader Penny uses the alias Cassiopeia. In Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, the penultimate main antagonist and "White Witch" in question is named Queen Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia is also the name of a song by London based band Bears in Trees. Although the lyrics of the song mainly refer to the ancient Greek woman, the album cover shows the constellation. Cassiopeia is the name of a champion in League of Legends. Her beauty and vanity mirror the character in Greek mythology.