Cepheus, the King, is a northern constellation that is circumpolar for most observers north of 30 degrees north latitude. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see constellation figures, boundaries, and star identifications. In mythology, Cepheus was married to Cassiopeia and father of Andromeda, two other northern constellations. Alpha Cephei is Alderamin, the brightest star in the constellation, shining at magnitude 2.4. The spectral-class A blue-white star is located 49 light-years from Earth. Beta Cephei is Alfirk, a double star with components of magnitude 3.2 and 7.9. It is also a spectral-class B pulsating blue variable star. It is located 690 light-years away. Delta Cephei is a variable star. Its brightness ranges from magnitude 3.48 to 4.37 over a period of 5.36634 days and whose spectral class changes from F5 to G2 with these brightness variations. Delta Cephei is also a double star with a pale-blue magnitude 6.3 companion that is located 41 arcseconds away. Delta Cephei is located more than 900 light-years away. Mu Cephei is Herschel's Garnet Star, a bright, deep-red variable star. Its magnitude varies from 3.4 to 5.1 with a period of 2 years. It has a B-V index of +2.5. Cepheus is home to a number of deep-sky objects, including the very large emission nebulae IC 1396 and the Ced 214 - NGC 7822 complex. Other deep-sky objects in Cepheus include dark nebula Barnard 169, Sh2-155 (the Cave Nebula), NGC 7023 (the Iris Nebula), VdB 152 (Wolf's Cave), VdB 141, and the dusty LDN 1235 complex. Cepheus was cataloged by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the second century C.E. (Common Era). It is the 27th largest of today's 88 modern constellations, covering 588 square degrees of sky. North is to the lower right in the above image.
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