Cassiopeia inscribed

Early early yesterday morning I crawled out of bed, got dressed, and walked down to the bottom of our street to see if I could see the new Comet SWAN low in the NE sky.

Looking across downtown of a city is *not* the recommended way to find a comet that is only barely visible to the naked eye, and I did not succeed. The neighbourhood trees and wires and more distant street lights were all far brighter than the stars.

By naked eye, I couldn't even make out enough stars to recognise Cassiopeia in that part of the sky. But I took pictures in the general direction and today I picked her out from my pictures.

This is one of my pictures with Cassiopeia. If Comet SWAN had been visible it would have been just outside the lower right of this picture.

Word on the web is that the comet has largely disintegrated anyway. Oh well.

Even without the comet, I like this picture, and I have drawn in the W of Cassiopeia for my benefit. Maybe yours too.

My father knew a lot of the stars and many times he pointed out this W to us. He always pronounced it Cassy-OPE-ee-a which I carried into my adulthood. I understand now that's the USA pronunciation. These days I hear more people saying Cassy-o-PEE-a (apparently the British one). Sometimes I do too.