PERSEUS  , in

astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, called after the Greek legendary hero, it is mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.c.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); ' Author of a history of Antioch; he is quoted by John Malalas, Chronographia, pp . 37-38, ed . Bonn (1831) . Nothing further is known of him (see C . W . Muller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, W . 467) . Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe catalogued 29 stars, Hevelius 46 . The most important member of this constellation is 13 Persei or Algol (q.v.), a famous variable star . 6 Persei is a triple star, composed of one 4th magnitude star and two of the loth magnitude; p Persei is an irregular variable, with a range in magnitude of 3.4 to 4'1 . Nova Persei is a " new " star discovered in 1887 and subsequently recognized on Harvard plates by Mrs Fleming in 1895; another new star was discovered by Anderson on the 21st of February 1901, which, after increasing in magnitude, gradually became fainter and ultimately disappeared . There is a nebula surrounding Nova Persei (1901) which was photo-graphed at Yerkes observatory in September 1901; a pair of star clusters, appearing as a bright patch in the Milky Way; and the meteoric swarm named the Perseids, which appear in August and have their radiant in Perseus .