It rightly earns its name as many would class Mira as the most impressive example of a variable star. But this star is not the “star” of the constellation, the most famous star in Cetus is the variable star Mira, which means the “amazing one”. Whatever humans want to call it, this giant orange coloured star is located approximately 96 light years away from us and has a bright magnitude of 2.0. The brightest star in Cetus is Diphda (Beta Ceti), sometimes known by the traditional name Deneb Kaitos which means “the whale’s tail” (confusingly Iota Ceti is also sometimes called Deneb Kaitos). If we move to the east from the great square of Pegasus and look low to the horizon we can find the huge constellation of Cetus the sea monster! If you are anything like me, Cetus being a monster found the sea just makes it all the more terrifying! Cetus is also known sometimes as the Whale but I have yet to see a whale with terrifying front claws and a fear inducing face to match! As the 4 th largest constellation in the night sky kit has lots to offer the autumn stargazer with lots of bright stars and deep sky objects to try and spot. So let’s use the Great Square to help find a few “monstrous’ constellations and celestial objects in the autumn night sky. One of the best bits of advice for stargazing is that you need your celestial anchor for each of the stargazing seasons, and in autumn it is the Great Square, which is the belly of the mythical favourite, Pegasus! The four corner stars of Pegasus form an easily identified square shape and can direct you to various constellations and objects visible in the autumn night sky. Where to see Cetus (Image credit: Kerry Scullion/AOP)īy the end of October we should have darkness by 7.30pm so we can start our winter stargazing pretty early compared to the summer, but personally I like to leave my stargazing to the later time of 10pm, just to make sure it is extra dark! There are not just the spooks and ghouls in the dark but also the wonders of the autumn night sky!
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