Constellations
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Presentations / Astronomy / Constellations

These nymphs (the Nereids) complained to Poseidon, who felt he had to defend his own reputation. So he sent a flood to devastate Cepheus' kingdom. The oracles told Cepheus that in order to save his people he must sacrifice his daughter to a great sea monster: Andromeda was tied to a rock along the coastline, dressed only in her jewelry. The monster would be along in due time to take his prize.

At that moment Perseus came flying by. He had just killed the Gorgon Medusa and was carrying the severed head back to Athene. To make a long story short, he saved her then turned everyone into stone by showing them the severed head.

Poseidon then put the stone frozen Cepheus and Cassiopeia into the heavens, but with a twist: he made the vain Cassiopeia spin around on her chair, spending half the year upside down. As for Cepheus, Poseidon gave him a number of medium sized stars that go to make his square face with a pointed crown.

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Cepheus Circumpolar Constellation

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Cassiopeia

This constellation is at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy and has the shape of a "W".

The story behind it:

Cassiopeia had been the wife of Cepheus. Because she thought herself more beautiful than the daughters of Nereus, a god of the sea, she angered the god Poseidon. To punish her, her daughter was chained to a rock of the coast as a sacrifice for a sea monster. Andromeda was saved from death by Perseus. To learn humility Cassiopeia was banned to the sky hanging half of the time head downward.

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Cassiopeia Circumpolar Constellation

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Draco

Draco, the Dragon, used to hold special significance as the location of the pole star, but due to the Earth's precession, the pole has shifted to Polaris in Ursa Minor.

The story behind it:

The dragon is Ladon, the guardian of the 'golden apples' of immortality which grew in the garden of Hesperides, beyond the River of Time, in the land of death. It is Ladon which Hercules kills in his 11th labor to get the golden apples.