Perseus is a northern constellation that represents a hero of Greek legend. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see constellation figures, boundaries, and star identifications. In a long and complicated myth, Perseus rescues Andromeda, the Princess, who had been chained to a rock and left for Cetus, the Sea Monster, by her parents, Cepheus, the King, and Cassiopeia, the Queen. Perseus later marries Andromeda. Alpha Persei is traditionally known as Mirfak or Marfak. Its name means "Elbow" in Arabic. It is a spectral-class F supergiant star that shines at an apparent magnitude of 1.79. It is located 509 light-years away from the Earth. Mirfak lies at the heart of Mel 20, the Alpha Perseus moving cluster. Beta Persei is called Algol, the Demon Star. In Arabic Algol means the "Demon's Head." It is an eclipsing binary star whose brightness varies from 2.1 to 3.4. Every 68 hours and 49 minutes its magnitude drops for 10 hours while in eclipse. Algol is located 93 light-years distant. The Milky Way runs from the upper left hand corner of the frame in Cassiopeia to the lower center of the image. Numerous open clusters lie strewn across the area including the Double Cluster, M34, NGC 1528, and the beautiful Pleiades at lower right. Kemble's Cascade is in Camelopardalis at lower left. Red emission nebulae LBN 667 and IC 1805 are seen not far from the Double Cluster. NGC 1499, the California Nebula, lies in the lower right of the image. Perseus was cataloged by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the second century C.E. (Common Era). It is the 24th largest of today's 88 modern constellations, covering 615 square degrees of sky. North is to the left in the above image.
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