28 SKYNEWS •NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
O
NE THREAD of classical myth -
ology asserts that Cepheus, the
king of Ethiopia, earned his spot
in the heavens when he helped Jason and
the Argonauts in their search for the
Golden Fleece. But most of us know
Cepheus through a different saga involv -
ing his wife Cassiopeia and their lovely
daughter Andromeda.A half-dozen autumn constellations are
characters in this story, which begins when
Queen Cass enraged the local sea nymphs
with her boundless vanity. Word got out
that the nymphs’ boss, Neptune, would
teach Cassiopeia a lesson by pillaging her
husband’s entire kingdom. Cepheus averted
the attack by agreeing to sacrifice sweet An-
dromeda to Cetus, a hideous sea monster.
Luckily, a hero named Perseus swooped
down on his flying horse Pegasus to save
the luckless lass. Cepheus’s role in this un-
likely chain of events is recorded in old
charts that show his hands upraised, as if
making a humble entreaty to the gods.Viewed from Canadian latitudes, cir-
cumpolar Cepheus never sets. Unfortu-
nately, the five stars forming the pointy-
roofed house shape aren’t very bright.
The rooftop is marked by 3.2-magnitude
Gamma Cephei, named Errai. Anchoring
the house’s southwest corner is 2.4-magni-
tude Alpha Cephei, called Alderamin. Near
the southeastern corner is the famous vari-
able star Delta Cephei,
which pulsates between
magnitude 3.5 and 4.4
every 5.4 days. Delta
forms a tiny triangle
with 3.3-magnitude Zeta
and 4.2-magnitude Ep-
silon, which makes as-
sessing Delta’s brightness
easy. In the house’s base-
ment is another variable,
red-hued Mu Cephei,
nicknamed the Garnet
Star. Mu fluctuates errat-
ically between third and
fifth magnitude.
Obviously, modest Ce -
pheus is no constellation
poster boy, yet its link
with royalty is evident in
the sky lore of several
ancient cultures. Orien-
tal legend pictured Cepheus as the “Inner
Throne of the Five Emperors.” In Egypt,
where stars in the Far North were consid-
ered immortal, Cepheus was related to
Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid.
In Babylon, Cepheus was believed to be a
descendant of the sky god Enlil, who ruled
the circumpolar heavens.
Some European charts portray Cepheus
lording over the north celestial pole. In
Johann Bode’s Uranographia, a celestial
atlas created in 1801, the king is about to
authoritatively plant his left foot on the
pole star and, inadvertently, on the tail of
the Little Bear. Mind your step, Sire! ✦CONSTELLATION CORNER by ken hewitt-white
cepheuS
Cepheus resembles a child’s drawing of a house—
but to certain ancient cultures, it was a house of royaltyIMAGE FROM ALEXANDER JAMIESON’S 1822 CELESTIAL ATLAS(CONSTELLATION LINES ADDED BY SKYNEWS)Explore
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