Cepheus (Vrushparva)
Cepheus, resembles the shape of a king, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Draco, is the constellation which is towards west of Andromeda constellation. If
you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis. In the North of Cepheus, you will find Ursa Major and in South, Lacerta and Cygnus constellations. Cepheus is near North Pole, and so is fully part of Northern Hemisphere.
It covers up 588 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 27th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this king shape of Cepheus constellation from January to August, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 153 stars of this constellations, as they are the one which are brighter than the lower limit of our naked eyes (i.e. 6.5 apparent magnitude) to see faintest stars.. The brightest star of this constellation is Alderamin.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 153 stars of different types, here is the list of 20 brightest stars as per their nature:
| Binary / Multiple Star system | Variable Stars | Binary and Variable Stars | Single stars |
| Kurhah | Errai | Alderamin | 5 |
| 5 | 3 | Alfirk | – |
| – | – | 3 | – |
| 6 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
As per Hindi mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Fireworks Galaxy or NGC 6946 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 188 || Open Cluster
NGC 7142 || Open Cluster
NGC 7538 || Diffuse Nebula
All the stars that we see naked eyes, all belong to our own, Milky way galaxy (Akash Ganga Tara Vishv). Bright stars can be seen naked eye and faint one through telescope. But the curtain of sky that we see in 2D is actually a huge universe we are talking about, with 3 dimension. There are many nebulous objects visible in every constellations. They differ widely by distances and nature. Like Emission Nebula, Reflecting Nebula, Absorption Nebula, Star Birth Nebula, Supernova Remnants (SNR) and Open Stars cluster which are within the disk of our own Milky Way galaxy. Globular cluster are also found, which are in the halo of our galaxy and some most distant objects like galaxies are also visible through telescope. Such objects are defined as “Deep Sky Objects”.
In this constellation there are 45 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
NGC 7129 || Reflection Nebula
Iris Nebula or NGC 7023 || Reflection Nebula
Wizard Nebula or NGC 7380 || Emission Nebula of open CLuster
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | |
| Naked eye visibility | – | 1 | – | – | – |
| Visible through Telescope | 4 | 8 | – | Bow tie Nebula | – |
| – | – | – | Iris Nebula | – | |
| – | – | – | 4 | – | |
| 4 | 9 | – | 6 | – |