The sky is full of kites and aeroplanes, but don’t forget the massive stars too

With Steve Tonkin

1. Kemble’s Kite
Take a line from mag. +3.4 Segin (Epsilon (ε) Cassiopeiae) through mag. +4.6 Iota (ι) Cassiopeiae and extend it another 7Æ to mag. +6.4 V805 Cassiopeiae, which will look a deep yellow in your binoculars. It is the brightest of a 1.5Æ-long asterism of 10 stars of mag. +8.5 and brighter in the form of a diamond kite. The Kite has an easily splittable double star at its northern tip and a tail flowing southwards towards Perseus.

2. The Queen’s Kite
Our next target is even easier. Locate mag. +4.7 Chi (χ) Cassiopeiae which is the brightest of a pentagon of stars that surrounds a mag. +7.3 star 0.75Æ to the southeast. The tail extends southward for more than 2Æ from the most easterly star of this pentagon. Note the varied colours of the stars: the two brighter ‘wing-tip’ stars are yellow, while all the fainter ones are brilliant white.

3. Rho Cas
Our next object, Rho (ρ) Cassiopeiae, is a yellow hypergiant. If it was where our Sun is, it would extend beyond the orbit of Mars! It normally varies between mag. +4.6 and +5.4, but every few decades it reddens and falls below 6th magnitude. This last happened 76 years ago, so is worth looking out for.

4. The Queen’s Aeroplane
Golden yellow mag. +5.0 star 4 Cassiopeiae marks the starboard wingtip of this small but colourful asterism of eight stars, all at mag. +8.0 or brighter. The other wingtip, a degree to the west, is mag. +6.6 blue-white V649 Cas. The curved ‘fuselage’ extends a degree northwards to a mag. +6.7 orange-red star.

5. OΣΣ 1
You don’t really need 70mm binoculars for our next target; it’s easily visible in 20mm if you prefer, but the larger instrument brings out the colour contrast in this very pretty optical double star. Start at mag. +3.2 Errai (Gamma (γ) Cephei) and pan 2.5Æ towards Segin. Here is our widely separated (73 arcsecond) target. The brighter, mag. +7.2 member is orange-red, while the fainter, mag +7.7 companion is a yellowish white.

6. Herschel’s Garnet Star
The deep orange supergiant star, mag. +4.0 Mu (μ) Cephei is named for William Herschel, whose description is as apt today as it was when it was written more than 200 years ago: “a very fine deep garnet colour… a most beautiful object, especially if we look for some time at a white star before we turn to it.” This is one of the largest known stars; Jupiter’s orbit would easily fit inside it.