Hi, I'm Shannon Silverman, astrophysicist at the Clay Center and welcome to Almost Heavens.

Here in West Virginia, we're just about halfway between the North Pole and the equator.

That means we are in the perfect spot to view everything the northern skies have to offer.

And even a little of the southern skies, too.

During the fall, one of the most distinctive and easy to recognize constellations is high in the sky for much of the season.

This constellation is called Cassiopeia and is well known for its distinctive W or M shape depending on how you look at it.

Five stars make u what is technically an asterism, an unofficial constellation, in the larger Cassiopeia, but often this asteris is referred to by the same name.

In this asterism, four of the five stars are particularly brigh compared to their surroundings, and all are similar brightness to each other.

The brightest of these is Schedar, followed by Caph, Tiansi, and Ruchbah.

The last star in the W is Segin, and it's both fainte than the others and further out, making the W see a little stretched on that side.

Of the five main stars.

Schedar is easy to recognize.

Not only is i the brightest, it's a distinctly orange star and form the point of its side of the W. This giant star is in a late stage of life, and has expanded to be approximately 40 times the size of the sun and over 700 times as luminous.

This is why it shines so brightly, despite being about 230 light years away.

Schedar also serves as an excellent guide star, pointing us in the direction of the next constellation.

We're going to look for using the triangle formed by Schedar, Caph, and Tiansi.

Imagine a line going from the middle of the base of the triangle down through Schedar.

Follow that line dow until you reach a bright orange star called Mirach.

To be sure that you have the right star, look to your left nearly directly below Ruchbah in Cassiopeia to find another orange star.

Almach return to Mirach and then go right instead for about the same distance and you'll see the blue white star Alpheratz.

Together, these three stars form a gentle curve, with each of the three stars being about equidistant from each other.

Almach, Mirach and Alpherat are all almost exactly the same brightness, though Alpheratz stands out for its color being blue white while the other two are orange.

These three stars are part of a large but faint constellation called Andromeda, which might sound familiar.

This constellation is where the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest full siz galactic neighbor, can be found.

Unfortunately, because so muc of this constellation is faint, finding any part of it other than its brightest three stars can be difficult in areas with more light pollution.

Still these three stars are beautiful and interesting enough on their own, and Almach in particular has a secret.

If you look at it through a telescope, you can see that Almach is actually two stars, one blue and one gold.

But that's not all.

Almachs blu star is three stars in itself.

Meaning what we see as Almach is actually a quadruple star system.

Thank you for joining.

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Until next time.