How many stars make up the constellation, cassiopeia?

Question

How many stars make up the constellation, cassiopeia?

Answer 1

Five, I believe.

Answer 2

Just You Baby, Just You

Answer 3

That strongly depends on how you define the constellation.

These days we use the constellations to define regions of the sky, a bit like defines land by states.

So any stars that happen to be in that region of the sky are then in that constellation.

check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellati...

http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/con...

Check out the wikipedia entry for Cassiopeia to see what area of sky it covers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiopeia_...

The brightest 5 stars are what most people think of as cassiopeia - but there are many more. And it contains other objects (e.g. Messier objects, which are typically nebula, clusters or galaxies)

This link is particularly fun:

http://160.114.99.91/astrojan/cassio.htm

you can click on some of the stars and nebulae to find out what they are, and you can really see the multitude of fainter stars that are usually ignored...

Enjoy