STAR GAZER
THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION
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Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers. Some constellations are easy to find and some are difficult. But one of autumn's most famous constellations is very easy to find any night in November because she is at her highest from sunset to midnight. And she'll be fun to look for after thanksgiving dinner. Let me show you.
Go out between 8 and 10 p.m. look due north and you'll see 5 bright stars which if you connect with lines trace out a squashed out letter "m". This is the constellation Cassiopeia named for a legendary queen of exceptional beauty of ancient Ethiopia. But how does this squashed out "m" shape remind anyone of a queen? Well if we add a dim little star to the 5 we can trace out a nice stick figure of Cassiopeia's throne. At this time of year and night however she'd have to be glued to it or wear a seat belt because she is hanging face downward over the North Star. Now if you look directly opposite Cassiopeia on the other side of the North Star, close to the horizon you will see the Big Dipper.
And one of the nifty things about Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper is that they circle endlessly around the North Star, always opposite each other, like the hands of a clock. For instance if we move forward in time by six hours you'll notice that Cassiopeia's throne is almost upright and the Big Dipper has moved to the right of the North Star. Six hours later Cassiopeia is beneath the North Star and the Big Dipper above it and so on, a great celestial clock, which incidentally is one of the functions these two constellations served for our clockless ancestors. But why you may ask would anyone put a great queen on a sky throne when her throne is so often upside down in a precarious position?
Well it seems that Cassiopeia claimed that she was the most beautiful creature on Earth, which didn't sit very well with certain ancient deities. So as punishment for her vanity she was placed in the heavens on her throne and forced to ride around the North Star for all eternity, sometimes in a queenly upright position but more often in a less than royal posture. And Cassiopeia still serves as a cosmic object lesson to mere mortals who brag of their personal beauty.
Today Cassiopeia is marked by 5 bright stars. But 473 years ago this month, in November 1572, astronomers all around the world watched a new star slowly grow in brightness in addition the five, a star which outshone every other star in the sky for many weeks and which was visible for over a year. We now know that it was a giant exploding star called a supernova. But all that remains in this spot now are the ghostly echoes of its shattered remnants still flying at great speed through space and time. So get thee out and look for an ancient queen whose vanity "done her in" and who once had a super star visitor that gives the name super star a whole different meaning. Invite a queen to your thanksgiving feast and keep looking up!
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Horkheimer: Every November and Thanksgiving the constellation queen Cassiopeia rides high. On November nights between 8 and 10 p.m. look north and you will see five bright stars which trace out the letter "m". Add a dim star and you can imagine Cassiopeia's throne here on which she rides endlessly around the North Star as punishment for her vanity, strapped in no doubt by a very ancient seat belt. 437 years ago this month she had a visitor, a brilliant new star which outshone every star in the sky, which we now know was a giant exploding star, a supernova whose shattered remains we can still see here, a super star visitor for a super queen. So brighten your Thanksgiving night with cosmic royalty. Keep looking up!
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* This week's Sky At A Glance and
Planet Roundup from Sky & Telescope.Starry Night Deluxe was used to produce this episode
of Star Gazer![[SmilinJack]](jack1sm.jpg)
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