CASSIOPEIA was a beautiful black Queen married to King Cepheus, who was the Ethiopian king of Joppa, a city in the land of Palestine. Cassiopeia was foolish enough to boast that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than the sea nymphs. When Poseidon heard this he sent a raging flood and a sea monster to devastate the country. King Cepheus consulted an Oracle who advised him that he would have to sacrifice his daughter Andromeda to the monster. Luckily Perseus came by at that time from his quest of killing the Gorgon Medusa, and seeing the plight of a beautiful woman dressed only in her royal jewellery, chained to a rock, offered to help if he could marry Andromeda. The King quickly agreed. So Perseus then beheaded the monster and went home with a new wife.

Interesting objects in Cassiopeia

M 52 Bright hazy area which lies close to 4 Cass, easily see How about a star with 65 times Jupiter?s mass? This is still only 6.5% the mass of the Sun and would give out only one-millionth the light. This star would be barely red hot, so we have to move the Earth in close to receive the same amount of energy as now. At a height of 150,000 km above its surface the Earth would orbit this star in just 1.1 hours.n in 10x50mm binoculars. Messier discovered this cluster on 7^th September 1774 close to a comet discovered earlier that year. ½° SE of M 52 lies NGC 7653, the Bubble Nebula, with a magnitude of 8.5 this nebula is very faint and barely discernible in a 6" telescope, and may be a remnant of a former nova. This object remains for me to observe it.

Magnitude 6.9, RA 23h 24m, Dec 61° 35?

M 103 Not very distinct in 10x50mm binoculars, but through a 4" telescope forms a small but distinctive slender arrow head arrangement of stars. Although M 103 was discovered by Mechain, it remains the last object catalogued by Messier and not included in his Second Supplement published in the 1784 edition of the Connaissance des Temps.

Magnitude 7.4, RA 01h 33m, Dec 60° 42?

NGC 129 Easily seen with 10x50mm binoculars as a distinct small hazy area lying immediately to the north of the star b1094. With a low power on a 4" telescope the cluster appears so sparse that it can be overlooked amongst the other stars in the area around it.

NGC 146 Only visible with a 6" telescope as a distinctive hazy area north of the star k Cass.

NGC 147 Magnitudes 9.5 (147) and 9.2 (185). Two members of our local group of galaxies. NGC 147 is very faint and will require a 12" telescope to see it. In a 6" telescope

NGC 185 should show a 4? elongated halo in a east/west direction, neither of these galaxies have been observed by me and for further details to find the galaxies refer to the detailed star chart on the cover. They are about 730 kpc distant.

NGC 225 Just visible with 10x50mm binoculars, through a 4" telescope the cluster appears as an easily identifiable group of stars of similar magnitude arranged to form a button mushroom. Magnitude 7, RA 00h 43m, Dec 61° 47?

NGC 278 A galaxy, but not one of the local cluster and not yet observed by me. Magnitude 10.9, RA 00h 49m, Dec 47° 17?.

NGC 281 A low surface object and not observed with any certainty with my 4" telescope, this object however photographs easily and appears bright red on colour film and may also show a dark intrusion on one side.

NGC 381 Not visible with my 4" telescope. Magnitude 9.3, Diameter 6? RA 01h 05m, Dec 61° 19.?

NGC 436 Located just 40? NW of NGC 457 and appears as a small bright hazy spot in a 6" telescope. Magnitude 8.8, Diameter 6?.

NGC 457 The Rev. T.W. Webb says in his book ?Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes?, The most impressive cluster of all in Cassieopia and up to the present day some times referred to as the Owl Cluster, due to the brighter members of the group forming an outline of a bird with out stretched wings as observed with a small telescope. With 10x50mm binoculars, well seen but only as a bright hazy area around the star f Cass.

NGC 654 Can be seen clearly with 10x50mm binoculars, but will only appear as a star of the 6^th magnitude. Magnitude 6.5, Diameter 8? RA 01h 40m, Dec 61° 38?.

NGC 559 Observed with a 4" telescope as a very faint cluster and not well resolved regardless of magnification used. To find this cluster requires knowledge of its exact position to see it. Magnitude 9.5, Diameter 4.4? RA 01h 23m, Dec 63° 03?.

NGC 659 This group lies within the same field of view as NGC 663 but will require a 4" telescope with a magnification of around x30 to resolve it.

NGC 663 With 10x50mm binoculars a large and fairly bright haze and much easier to see than M 103.

NGC 743 Faintly visible with a 4" telescope as a small triangular arrangement of stars lying within a larger but fainter looser cluster. With a magnification of x50, NGC 743 reveals only 6 stars visible, while with x64, 7 stars are visible. Diameter 5? RA 01h 55m, Dec 59° 56?.

NGC 1027 Not observed by me, although should be visible in 10x50mm binoculars. NGC 1027 is centred around a 7^th magnitude star. Magnitude 6.7, Diameter 20? RA 02h 38m, Dec 61° 20?.

NGC 7788 Observed with a 4" telescope as very faint and difficult cluster to see and will require a detailed star chart for most observers to locate it. Magnitude 9.4, Diameter 9? RA 23h 54m, Dec 56° 27?.

NGC 7789 Very large hazy area easily seen with 10x50mm binoculars which occupies approximately 1/3 of the space between r and s Cass. In a 6" telescope a superb sight consisting of many stars of a similar magnitude resolved in an approximate circular area about 6,000 light years distant. This is one of the few clusters discovered by Caroline Herschel.

King 14 Just a little to the south east of NGC 146, but this cluster may require a 10" telescope to see it. Magnitude 8.5, Diameter 7?.

Stock 2 Easily seen in 10x50mm binoculars as a extended cluster found by following a curving string of stars from the Double Star cluster in Perseus. Surprisingly this cluster was first recorded by Rev.T.W. Webb in his book ?Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes?, published towards the end of the 19^th century and wasn?t formally catalogued till 1954 by two Polish astronomers.

Other objects to look for in Cassiopeia are variables and doubles. Two of the main stars in Cassiopeia are variable; a, Schedir and g, Tsih, it is possible that d, Ruchbah is an eclipsing variable too. Double stars are h, ?Eta, with magnitudes of 3.5 and 7.2 this is an easy object. x, Zeta and l, Lambda at 5.5 and 5.8 are near a, Cass. also i, Iota is a fine triple of 4.6, 6.9 and 8.4.
 

Dark bodies orbiting them may be detected, most likely by indirect means. Most of these planets will of cause be large Jupiter size bodies which we?re not interested in as a home for life. But if a Jupiter size planet exists, why not other smaller planets? After all we are only 10 times smaller....

Other Stars, Other Systems Most of the stars we can see with the naked eye are on the whole much bigger and brighter than our sun and many of them are binary or even triple systems. So most of these can be ruled out... or can they? Is it possible for binary systems to have planetary systems? This may depend on how close the stars orbit each other. If the orbital period is in the order of say 15 years or longer it?s possible that planets could orbit each star independently. If Jupiter was even more massive, say it was a brown dwarf 20 times today?s mass, its gravitational pull would not effect Earth?s orbit for the Suns influence is so strong at our distance.

Likewise Jupiter?s gravity holds onto a large retinue of moons, four planet size and many smaller, with IX Sinope orbiting 23,700,000 km out. This is nearly half the distance of Mercury from the Sun. On the other hand if two stars in a binary system orbited close together it would still be possible for a planetary system to form with both stars in the central position. The stars in the Capella binary system are separated by only 84 million km, so a stable orbits could be possible from 300 million km outwards. There may be other ways of detecting planetary systems. The accepted formation of a star is that it forms out of a large, cold cloud of gasses which condense and spin and eventually condenses to form a star. The left over bits rotating around it form the planets. After the star ignites, it boils off most of the lighter gasses from the nearer planets leaving them mostly rocky bodies with small amounts of atmospheres. Further out, the new stars fires won?t heat up the other more remote bodies as much and they will retain their original quota of gasses. Because our solar system is the only one we know, we have no idea if it?s typical of others.

Our Sun rotates on its axes in about 27 days and contains 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. This is very much more slowly than many other stars as can be seen by the width of the dark element absorption lines in their spectrum. The wider the lines, the faster the star rotates. What is special about the Suns rotation is that 98% of the angular momentum of our solar system resides in the insignificant mass of the planets, with Jupiter possessing 60% and Saturn with 25%. So do slow rotators like our Sun mean planets and rapid rotation not? If the star has retained its angular momentum from formation and has not had it transferred to its planets then it?s most likely to be planetless. It has been discovered that the more massive a star, the more liable it is to be a fast-rotator. This is large star area with spectral classes O, B, A and F0, 1 & 2. Of the rest, the smaller F2-F9, G, K and M stars, these are mostly slow-rotators. This means that the majority of stars, fully 93% in our galaxy, are slow spinners!

Our Sun is a class G2 star and is by no means a small star, indeed it is larger than more than 95% of the stars in our galaxy! The Greatest and Smallest Suns So lets see what it would be like to be on another planet around a different star. For a start, we must assume that any type of life as we know it must have liquid water, at least some of the time. From that it is easy to see that it is necessary for a planet to orbit its sun in a region where the suns heat will melt ice into water without boiling it away. For a large type A, B or F star this region is very much larger and further out than for a small M type star.

This shell around a star is called an ecosphere, an envelope where life can exist. The Earth is near the middle of the Sun?s ecosphere zone with Mars at one edge and Venus at the other. Other factors can play apart such as atmosphere thickness, composition, angle of the planets rotation, and the amount of magnetic field. Recent calculations have put this band around our Sun at only just over 10 million km deep if such considerations as the greenhouse effect are taken into account. Suppose the Earth was circling a giant hot star, such as P Cygni, class B, 60+ times the Suns mass. The surface temperature of P Cygni is about 50,000°C as compared to 6,000°C for our Sun. Then the ecosphere would be billions of kilometers away, 60 times the distance of Pluto from our Sun, 360 billion kilometers, 12 light days away! From this vast distance the star would be a tiny extraordinarily bright point of light in the sky, as small as any star, but not like any star we can imagine. At this distance the Earth would still receive just as much heat and light as from the Sun today.

All the shadows thrown by the sun would be razor edged with even the smallest glance by the unshielded eye probability causing a temporary blind spot like the light of an arc welding torch.  But not only light and heat, but also dangerous ultraviolet and x-rays would flood the planet. If we moved the Earth further away or gave it a thicker atmosphere, life may still be possible. But the greatest objection to life round the giant star is time. It just will not last long enough for life to get going. If large stars are not good news for life forms, how about small stars? After all there are many millions of small M type stars for every one giant.

A star 5% the mass of our Sun would only give out one-billionth the light, this is brown dwarf territory and not conducive for life. How about a star with 65 times Jupiter?s mass? This is still only 6.5% the mass of the Sun and would give out only one-millionth the light. This star would be barely red hot, so we have to move the Earth in close to receive the same amount of energy as now. At a height of 150,000 km above its surface the Earth would orbit this star in just 1.1 hours.
In the sky would be a dull red sun 3,000 times larger than now, giving very little light, most of the energy in the form of infrared light. Living on such a planet with the sun covering most of the sky, giving off a dull red glow, eyes would need to be receptive in the infrared wave lengths to be able to make full use of what light was available. This is not the main problem however. Because the star and the planet orbit so close to each other, the gravitational tidal forces would cause the planet to bulge in the direction of the stars centre of gravity. As the planet rotates this bulge will cause internal friction to heat the rocks in the crust. This heat is energy from the rotation of the planet. In a very short time the plane would slow down and become gravitational locked to the star with just one side forever pointing sunward with the other in perpetual darkness. Quickly the atmosphere and all the water on the planet would freeze out on the dark side killing any chance of life forever. Most of the satellites in the solar system are now gravitational locked to their planet. Because of the effect of the Moon and the Sun on Earth?s seas and crust, the length of the day is increasing by one second every 100,000 years.

This may not sound a lot, but it?s 50,000 seconds or nearly 14 hours since formation! Life on Earth The very early history of Earth is not known and can only be guessed at. With the proto-planet forming a ball of semi-molten rock and iron, with just a thin crust of rock punctured constantly by the infall of meteorites and other bodies, it would be impossible to find liquid water. Then just as it was settling down to form a permanent crust, it was hit a glancing blow by another planet the size of Mars. This impact stripped off most of the atmosphere and delivered extra material and mass to the planet along with a large satellite which formed out of the remains of the splashed crust and parts of the other body thrown into orbit around Earth. There are many things we don?t know or understand about the development of life on our planet, but from the evidence we have it must have started within 500 million years of the Earth?s formation 4.63 billion years ago. Even then life spent nearly 2 billion years developing before multicellular plants more advanced than blue-green algae appeared, then another billion before the earliest fossil records.

Blue-green algae is able to use the energy of sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into tissue components by photosynthesis. In doing so they gave out small amounts of oxygen, which over time steadily built up in the atmosphere. During all this time, deadly ultraviolet radiation would have been reaching the surface because there would be no ozone layer to prevent it. Then the first cells with nuclei appeared. These larger cells had a much more efficient chemistry, and began to change the Earth?s atmosphere into the one we know today. The new cells using oxygen where 20 times more efficient for a given mass, so life was able to move more rapidly and evolved in different directions. It changed into multicellular organisms and by 600 millions years ago, had developed hard rigid tissues. By now the Earth was 4 billion years old and from then on life can be found in the fossil record. Then just 300 million years ago with an ozone layer in place, life crawled out of the sea. But what about our super large star? Well after a mere 100 million years it will die, most, spectacularly in a super nova explosion. If the star is twice the mass of the Sun it also will not last long enough for intelligence life to appear. If we stick to the premise that a star must remain on the main sequence for about 5 billion years, then its mass must be no more than 1.4 times the Suns mass. This star will be a F2 class. By comparison Sirius will remain on the main sequence for about 500 million years and a star like Rigel for only 400. In contrast the small M type stars will last for many billions of years without much change. These stars are the longest living. Of cause, we have no idea if the figure of 4 billion years is realistic or not for the development of intelligent life on other planets. Maybe life can get going much more quickly without any hold-ups. We don?t know how many times it go going here only to be wiped out in yet another meteor bombardment. It could have had to start hundreds of times. And how many times did life get put back to the beginning by the landing of a large rock on top of the most advanced bit?

None of these set backs may have happened elsewhere. Or are they necessary for life to progress? Until we can study another planet with life it can only be a guess. In The Ecosphere So we must increase the size of our star from the small M class type so that its ecosphere is large enough to guarantee that the tidal forces will not slow and gravitational lock the planet, so rendering it unfit for life. At 33% the mass of our Sun, a star will be class M2, bright enough for a larger Ecosphere. This then is the range of sizes we need to look to, from 1/3 to 1.4 times the mass of our Sun. In our galaxy alone it?s possible that there are 75,000,000,000 planetary systems around sunlike stars. OK, we?ve got our star sorted out but what about the planet? If the world is too large or small it cannot support the right conditions, this is obvious. But how big or small? Aaahh, a tricky question.... Mars has a mass of 0.11 the Earth, one-third the gravity, very little atmosphere. A small planet such as Mars will only have a small amount of water. Had it been closer to the Sun, the greater heat would have warmed the gases, speeding up the molecules in its atmosphere.

Slowly the lighter gases such as hydrogen and water vapour will leak out into space from the top of the atmosphere because the weaker gravity wouldn?t be able to hold onto them. Mars would then be a totally barren airless planet if it was in Earth?s position. To be near the bottom of the list, a mass of 40% of Earth?s could still be home for life, just. A planet half way in size between Earth and Mars would have enough water, air and gravity to hang on to them. From a semi-dry desert surface, life could change the surface into one more like Earth?s. Even with planet wide deserts, enough water would still exist, after 4 billion years, near the poles to support life. The one thing that life does to a planet, is terraform it to suit. How much larger can a planet be before it crosses over into a giant gas ball? This will depend on the nearness of its sun. The Earth and Venus started off just about the same size, but are now very different. The surface temperature of Venus is hotter then if it had no atmosphere at all because of its thick carbon dioxide gas driving up the temperature by the greenhouse effect. This did not happen to Earth as it was cooler and the pressure of the atmosphere thinner possibly from the collision of the Moons formation. Can this be the reason why we have life?

If Earth had had a thicker atmosphere would the greenhouse effect have pushed up the temperature until most of the surface water had evaporated? Will we ever know? If the Earth had been larger it may have collected more water so that it had a planet wide ocean. If we had not had the Moon we would not have had tides as strong as now. There is evidence that the early seas washing in and out of beach pools helped to provide the difference mixes of materials to form the early molecules of life. And now we have intelligent life on our planet. We are the product of millions of random changes and chances along a twisting road. But can we tell if other life is intelligent? If we get a radio message then we must conclude that the other party has reached a certain level of technology. It all depends on what we mean by intelligent life. Intelligence is not confined to just one species on our own planet so maybe its common across other planets if given enough time. But can we talk to it and understand it? For now we won?t bother with that question. But I?ll point to dolphins, whales and some of the apes..... and YOU can make your own mind up: how are we going to understand the message?
 

A note on George Smith-Clarke, 1884 - 1960

He spent three years with Daimler and designed scooters. In 1922 he was at the Alvis and equipped its aircraft-factory in 1935. Smith-Clarke advised on the Hurstmanceux, Sussex, 100" reflecting telescope and designed a machine for x-ray examination of the heart and improved the iron lung.

Vaughan Cooper

This was in a recent Sunday Times Q and A spot.

After the shortest day of the year (December 21), why do evenings open up more quickly than mornings?

On January 2 the Earth is at its nearest to the Sun, which means it is travelling most rapidly. It therefore has to turn through an extra angle to face the sun again. The length of the day, that is, the time between consecutive southings of the Sun, is at its greatest, about 24 hours 28

seconds. The southing of the Sun therefore gets progressively later and by mid-February is about 12.15pm at Greenwich. The effect of this is to push sunset later while hardly altering sunrise. Since this happens near the winter solstice, when the length of daylight is almost constant, the effect is obvious. A.S. Hanson, Dorset

        DATE SUNRISE      SUNSET

• 10, 12, 1993 8h,   5m, 19s 15h, 52m,   0s
• 15, 12, 1993 8h, 10m, 12s 15h, 51m, 56s
• 21, 12, 1993 8h, 14m, 21s 15h, 53m, 47s
• 25, 12, 1993 8h, 16m,   0s 15h, 56m, 12s
• 30, 12, 1993 8h, 16m, 45s 16h,   0m, 25s
•   2,   1, 1994 8h, 16m, 29s 16h,   3m, 34s
•   5,   1, 1994 8h, 15m, 42s 16h,   7m,   8s
• 10,   1, 1994 8h, 13m, 16s 16h, 13m, 56s
• 15,   1, 1994 8h,   9m, 29s 16h, 21m, 36s
• 20,   1, 1994 8h,   4m, 27s 16h, 29m, 57s

This shows the rising and setting times of the Sun from the Coventry area for a period over the Christmas and New Year. As you can see sunrise is latest about the 30^th Dec. and the earliest sunset is around the 15^th Dec. So while the mornings get lighter by 12m. the evenings get lighter by 38m in a month.

EYE ON THE SKY

By now everyone on the planet who is half aware of astronomical matters will know of the forthcoming impact of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 onto Jupiter. The eyes of all the worlds astronomers will be on the planet this July, along with every piece of hardware at their disposal. So far 12 spacecraft will be watching, with even Voyager 2, far out beyond Neptune and

Pluto, looking back to the planet. From this distance Jupiter will be only two pixels across in the frame! With all of this professional interest in this unusual event, what chance has the amateur in spotting something? Well not much, I?m afraid, from this country. Now don?t let me put you off observing this unique event, on the contrary do try. Its most unlikely that this type of impact will happen again for a very long time, so if you miss it.... Unfortunately this impact takes place during the longest days of the year so the nights will not get totally dark from our latitudes. The first of the fragments of the comet, travelling at 60 km per sec. could impact from 16^th July onwards. The average size of them are around 1 km but some12 of the largest could be up to 5 to 8 times larger. Because they are strong out along a line it is impossible to know the exact time of impact yet. What will the conditions be like at 21h 00m on Thursday July 21^st 1994 (the 25^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing) for observing? Not only is the sky not fully dark after sunset at 20h 10m on the 21^st but the Moon will be full one day later at 20h 16m on the 22^nd of July. This will add its light to the sky.

The full Moon will be near Uranus and Neptune in the south south east. Jupiter?s position will be at RA 14h 13m 30s and DEC12h 14m 36s about 7° from the 0.98 mag star a Spica in Virgo, having risen at 14h 24m, Jupiter sets at 0h 13m just after midnight from a position near Coventry. The planet will be low in the south west area of the sky. So a clear horizon is necessary in the south and west, or the planet will be hidden by obstacles. If a clear view is available, watching the planet for as long as possible before it sets will be necessary as the exact moments of any impact may not be know to the minute. And it is not at all sure what the effects of these cometary bodies will be on Jupiter. It is possible to work out what energy a 2 km body carries in various mass densities. For instance most comets are very soft objects, composed of a sponge like mixture of dust, rock and ices.

So the mass of a fragment is uncertain, therefore it?s impossible to estimate the explosive power in megatons. Some estimates put the impacting power at over 100 megatons for a large piece. The flash of the impact may be visible on one or more of the nearest Galilean moons if they happen to be on the far side of Jupiter. After an impact it will be 3 to 5 hours before the impact site revolves into view. If a large mass has hit, it will have penetrated deep into Jupiter?s atmosphere before exploding. Will this bring up gases from deep below the cloud layer? Your guess is as good has anyone else?s. How much mixing of the atmosphere takes place will depend on many factors and some cloud disturbances may be too small to see in amateur telescopes anyway. On the other hand, planet wide effects may be easily visible. We will just have to wait and watch. Don?t think you can watch Jupiter for only a few minutes and see everything, you can?t. To do any serious observing, look at Jupiter as much as possible BEFORE July so that you know how it behaves and what the cloud belts look like. The more you observe the more you?ll see and when the time comes, you will know if the comet has crashed or not