Constellation Chart

Cepheus

Cepheus is the name of two mythological kings. One was the son of Aleus, from Arcadia. He would become the king of Tegea (a community on the Peloponesian peninsula), would father twenty children, and would sail with Jason as an Argonaut. The other Cepheus was the son of Belus, king of Egypt (who was himself the son of Poseidon). This Cepheus grew to become the King of Ethiopia (or Joppa). He married Cassiopeia and they had a daughter Andromeda. (Yes, the whole family eventually winds up in the heavens.)

Galaxies In Cepheus

IC1396

IC1396 is a vast round nebula at the north side of the Milky Way in autumn, has a diameter of about 3 degrees. There is a red star with fourth magnitude at the north edge of the nebula, you'll see the star being a curious red with scopes. The star, mu Cephei is a semiregular supergiant that also varies roughly from 4.5 to 3.5 with a very long period of 730 days, and prompting William Herschel to call it the Garnet Star.

Vdb142b

IC1396 is a very large nebulosity in Cepheus. This selected area shows a dark nebula portion and the cometary nebula VdB142.

IC1470

This is a nebula positioned between Cepheus and Cassiopeia; actually this object has been classified in a planetary or diffused nebula according to reference. The nebula is not very well known; perhaps it's one of reasons why the kind of object of IC1470 is confused. This image shows you a bright nucleus and reddish surrounding region in circle, it's looks like a tiny diffused nebula with a diameter of 1 arc minute. The nebula has a visual brightness of 8th magnitude, you can see it easily through a small telescope.

NGC7139

A tiny planetary nebula in the pentagon of Cepheus is NGC7139. You can find it about 3 degrees 15 arc minutes ENE of alpha Cep. The nebula has an apparent diameter of 1.3 arc minute and shape of reddish and flat disk. You can see only very dimmed light through medium sized telescopes.

NGC7822

This unique-shaped diffused nebula of H-alpha line spectrum is positioned at the midway between beta Cas (west star in W-shaped Cassiopeia) and gamma Cep (a northern vertex star of Cepheus' pentagon). The nebula is spread out in the field of 2 degrees. It's one of many reddish nebulae distributed around the Milky Way of Cassiopeia and Cepheus. This NGC7822 stays a bit far from the Milky Way, and the nebula is positioned at the most northern position in all nebulae in the all celestial sphere. This nebula is very photogenic, and can be taken easily only with the wide-angled photo lenses.

NGC6946

The galaxy NGC6946 is a very fine face-on, has a diameter of over 10 arc minutes but fairly dark. We cannot detect spirals with naked eyes through telescopes. This image barely shows you indistinct spiral structure, and it looks like M33 in photographs taken by big telescopes.

NGC6939

The open cluster NGC6939 has a diameter of 8 arc minutes, nearly same with NGC6946. The cluster is fairly dim, looks like a nebula with binoculars, and you can appreciate fine member stars gathering in half circle with telescopes

NGC7023

NGC7023 is a minor reflection nebula in Cepheus. The nebula is lying 6 degrees NNW of alpha Cep. This image shows you that there are fewer stars on the outskirts of nebula comparing with outer region. Actually there is a huge dark nebula surrounding the reflection nebula. NGC7023 is emitting white light by reflecting the light of 7th magnitude star passing though in front of the dark nebula by chance. The celestial sphere includes various flows of dark nebulae in everywhere. Although we cannot detect almost all of those, can be seen like a silhouette if dark clouds are lying in front of the Milky Way, and also can be detected by reflecting the neighboring star's light like the case of NGC7023.

Sh2-129

This image shows you a very dimmed diffused H-alpha nebula of Sh2-129 in the constellation of Cepheus. The nebula is positioned about 4 degrees west of IC1396, a vast round nebula in Cepheus. Sh2-129 has a shape of hemisphere surrounding eastern part of two stars in center of picture. Actually very faint nebulosities are spread out the whole of center of image. The Cepheus is bathed in autumnal Milky Way, contains many minor reddish nebulae like this inner-Galactic cloud.

Sh2-140

This very faint nebula has some common points with the Cave nebula: it combines an emission portion at the border of a dark portion.

NGC 2276

An odd couple lives some 100 million light years away. Here we find a spiral galaxy, NGC 2276 on the left, and its neighbor NGC 2300 on the right. There are quite a few intriguing questions concerning this pair. First of all NGC 2276 displays a perturbed spiral structure yet astronomers seem to agree that NGC 2300 is not the source of the angst. Instead, astronomers have learned that there is an abundance of gas (not shown in this picture) surrounding these galaxies. It could be that NGC 2276's motion through the gas affects its morphology.

NGC2300

The second question that astronomers have deals with how two galaxies of seemingly different types are found together. Many theories of galactic formation state that it is the environment in which a galaxy forms that most strongly determines its structure. So how did these two come about?

Finally, recent studies have revealed that the common envelope of gas that surrounds these two galaxies is very massive and hot (emitting X-ray radiation). Yet there isn't enough luminous mass from these two galaxies alone to gravitationally hold on to the gas. This is one of many observations that lends credence to "dark matter" and its ubiquitous nature in our Universe

NGC7538

At a distance of 7000 light years this nebula contains the largest protostar yet to be discovered. This protostar is 300 times the size of our own solar system. A protostar is a gas cloud that "shrinks" its way to becoming a star.

Planetary Destinations In Centaurus

Gamma Cephei

Parent Star: gamma Cephei A (HD 222404) (K1 IV) in the constellation of Cepheus is located at a distance of 38.48 Light Years from our Solar system. Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 23 39 20.8490 & Declination: +77 37 56.193. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 3.225. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 1.69 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 5.27AU. Orbiting around gamma Cephei A is planet gamma Cephei A b is believed to be a Sulfurous Cloud Jovian and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is a Sulfur stained clouds of water or H2SO4. The planet is positioned at the inner edge of habitability zone at mean orbital distance of 2.029 AU and the planet Orbits around the star every 902.26 ± 6 Days and was discovered by COCHRAN W., HATZES A., ENDL M., PAULSON D., WALKER G., CAMPBELL B. & YANG S in Sep 2002.