Cassiopeia (Sharmistha)
Cassiopeia, resembles the shape of a queen, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Lacerta, is the constellation which is towards west of Cassiopeia constellation. If you move your eyes towards east, you will see another 
constellation named Camelopardalis and Perseus. In the North and South of Cassiopeia, you will find Cepheus and Andromeda constellations. Cassiopeia is near North Pole, and so is fully part of Northern Hemisphere.
It covers up 598 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 25th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…
We can gaze at this beautiful queen shape of Cassiopeia constellation from February to September as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 160 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 Schedar.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 160 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 |
| Achird | Fulu | Schedar | Castula |
| 2 | 3 | Ruchbah | 2 |
| – | – | Caph | – |
| – | – | 6 | – |
| 3 | 4 | 9 | 4 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindi mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Cassiopeia – A or SN 1671|| Supernova Remanant ||
M52 or NGC 7654 || Open Cluster
M103 or NGC 581 || Open Cluster
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. Many are different types of nebulae 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 56 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed.
Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
NGC 147 || Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
NGC 7789 or White Rose Cluster or Caroline’s Rose || Open Cluster
NGC 185 || Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
NGC 281 or Pacman Nebula || Emission Nebula
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | 3 | – | 2 | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | – | Owl Cluster | – | – | – | |
| – | M52 | – | – | – | ||
| – | M103 | – | – | – | ||
| – | 10 | – | – | – | ||
| – | 16 | – | 2 | – |