Cassiopeia Essay, Research Paper

Cassiopeia was the wife of Cepheus, the Ethiopian king of Joppa (now known as Jaffa, in Israel), and the mother of Andromeda. The queen was both beautiful and vain, and the story of how her vanity caused great distress is told in relation to the constellation Andromeda. After promising her daughter in marriage to Perseus, Cassiopeia had second thoughts. She convinced one of Poseidon’s sons, Agenor, to disrupt the ceremony by claiming Andromeda for himself. Agenor arrived with an entire army, and a fierce struggle ensued.

In the battle Cassiopeia is said to have cried “Perseus must die”. At any rate it was Perseus who was victorious, with the help of the Gorgon’s head.

Perseus had recently slain Medusa, the Gorgon, and had put its head in a bed of coral. He retrieved the head and waved it in midst of the warring wedding party, instantly turning them all to stone. In the group was both Cepheus and Cassiopeia.

A contrite Poseidon put both father and mother in the heavens. But because of Cassiopeia’s vanity, he placed her in a chair which revolves around the Pole Star, so half the time she’s obliged to sit upside down.

The asterism clearly shows the chair upon which Cepheus’s queen sits. The Bayer stars are generally third and fourth magnitude, with the exception of the first four stars which make up the “chair”.

Cassiopeia has many fine binaries, a few variables of note, and several interesting deep sky objects.

Cassiopeia was the beautiful wife of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and the mother of Andromeda. She is most famous in connection with the myth of her daughter, Andromeda. The queen made the mistake of bragging she was more lovely than the Nereids, or even than Juno herself. The goddesses were, needless to say, rather insulted, and went to Neptune, god of the sea, to complain. Neptune promptly sent a sea monster (possibly Cetus?) to ravage the coast. The king and queen were ordered to sacrifice their daughter to appease Neptune’s wrath, and would have done so had Perseus not arrived to kill the monster in the nick of time. As a reward, the hero was wedded to the lovely Andromeda.

By most accounts, Cassiopeia was quite happy with the match. In some versions of the myth, however, the queen objects to the marriage and is turned to stone when Perseus shows her the head of the Gorgon Medusa.

Although she was placed in the heavens by Neptune, the sea-god saw fit to humiliate her one final time (and for all eternity). He placed her so that she is seated on her throne, with her head pointing towards the North Star Polaris. In this position, she spends half of every night upside-down.

 Name: CASSIOPEIA

 Translation: Ethiopian Queen

 Abbreviation: Cas

 Genitive: Cassiopeiae

 Size: 25

 Regions: Circumpolar

 RA: 1hour

 Decl: +60 degrees

 Season: Anytime

 Midnight Culmination: 9 October

 Pages where CASSIOPEIA is discussed in Chet Raymo’s 365 Starry Nights: 169,184-188

Queen Cassiopeia is the lovely, but vain queen and wife to King Cepheus of Ethiopia. Cassiopeia had the presumption to claim that she was even more lovely than the exquisite Nereids, the fifty sea nymphs who were the daughters of the gentle god Nereus, known as the Old Man of the Sea.

The Nereids’ Revenge

Now the Nereid Amphitrite was the wife of Poseidon the God of the Sea. The Nereids begged Poseidon to punish the pride of Cassiopeia. This he did by sending the monster Cetus to ravage Ethiopia. To appease the god, King Cepheus had to offer his daughter Andromeda as a sacrifice to the monster, but the hero Perseus was able to slay the monster before it attacked Andromeda.

The Upside-down Queen

As an added punishment Cassiopeia was placed in the sky to revolve around the celestial pole forever, sometimes hanging upside down in undignified positions.