Hobbies And Interests
Things You'll Need
Instructions
Look northeast in the autumn skies. Fall is prime viewing time for Perseus, which should be visible after 9:00 p.m. The Milky Way runs through Perseus, making it even more vivid. On a moonless night, look for the constellation Cassiopeia, which is in the shape of a "W" or an "M" depending what time of night it is as the stars rotate with the movement of the earth. Perseus will be near Cassiopeia and the left of the Great Square of Pegasus, a constellation that contains four stars in the shape of a giant square. The brilliant star, Capella in Auriga, will also help you find Perseus. It is between Cassiopeia and Capella almost directly.
Think of a kangaroo without a head when you look at Perseus. This is the best way to describe this star group. Alternative connections of the stars in Perseus show him as a man with arms and legs but that's stretching things quite a bit.
Look for the variable star Algol. This star will change in magnitude, or apparent brightness, every three days. If Perseus is thought of as a kangaroo, then Algol would be in its hands. This is the star that the ancients saw as the eye of the head of Medusa because it changes in brightness. In reality, Algol is part of a triple star system that is 93 light years away. When one of the less bright stars orbits in front of the brigher one the change in magnitude is noticeable. This is called an eclipsing binary.
Use your binoculars to view the open cluster. Visible to the naked eye, this cluster of stars covers an area larger than the full moon. It is made up of a hundred stars that are more than 1,400 light years distant from Earth. It shows up well in a good set of binoculars and can be found a bit to the northeast of Algol. if you have a star chart you are working from while viewing Perseus, it is known as M34.
Do a double take at the Double Cluster. This is a pair of star clusters right next to each other between Perseus and Cassiopeia. They are only a few hundred light years apart in space. An open cluster is a group of up to a thousand stars that have formed from the same molecular cloud in the heavens and are bound togetehr by their own gravity. The Double Cluster in Perseus is among the most photographed objects in the night sky. The Double Cluster will be labeled NGC 869 and NGC 884 on your star chart.