Cassiopeia

The Queen

A bright, zigzag 'W' of five stars that circles the North Star opposite the Big Dipper, and the easiest way to find your way around the northern sky in autumn.

Chart drawn as the sky looks when you face the constellation: north is up and east is to the left. Dot size shows brightness, and color hints at temperature. The connecting lines are one common stick figure; other traditions draw them differently.

Best season: Autumn
Best months: September through December, high in the northeast to north on autumn evenings; visible in the north at other times
Visibility: Visible from across the United States, and above the horizon all night, all year, from all but the far southern states
Abbreviation: Cas

How to find it

Look north and a little east on an autumn evening for five fairly bright stars in a zigzag shaped like a W, or an M when it is upside down.
Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper sit on opposite sides of Polaris, so when one is high the other is low.
The W lies in the band of the Milky Way, so from a dark site the stars around it look dense and glowing.

Brightest stars

Schedar
Caph
Gamma Cassiopeiae (the center of the W)

What to look for

How the W turns into an M as the night goes on and as the seasons change.
The rich star fields around the constellation, which are especially striking in binoculars.

Binocular and telescope targets

The Double Cluster (between Cassiopeia and Perseus): two clusters of stars side by side, visible to the naked eye as a hazy patch and spectacular in binoculars
M52 and the other open clusters scattered through the constellation, easy targets for binoculars
The surrounding Milky Way: dense star fields that reward slow sweeps with binoculars

Using it to find other things

Polaris sits roughly halfway between Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper.
A line from Cassiopeia through Polaris continues to the Big Dipper on the other side of the pole.

About this constellation

Cassiopeia is the other half of a useful pair. The Big Dipper and the W of Cassiopeia sit on opposite sides of the North Star, circling it like two seats on a slow carousel. Between them, one of the two is almost always high enough to find, which makes them a reliable way to orient yourself on any clear night.

The W is easy to spot because its five stars are of similar brightness and form a clean, angular shape. It also lies along the Milky Way, so a quick sweep with binoculars nearby reveals more stars than you expect.

If you can find Cassiopeia, you can find Polaris and, from there, north. It is a handy piece of knowledge for night hiking and camping.

Related guides

Visibility depends on your latitude, the date, and the time of night. The months above assume a typical evening from the contiguous United States, so use a planetarium app to confirm what is up tonight. Never look at the Sun through binoculars or a telescope without a proper solar filter.

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