Camelopardalis and Ursa Minor - Downloadable article
In the Giraffe and Little Bear, galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, and other stellar arrangements dance around the North Celestial Pole.
By
Tom Polakis —
Published:
March 3, 2009This downloadable article is from an Astronomy magazine 45-article series called "Celestial Portraits." The collection highlights all 88 constellations in the sky and explains how to observe each constellation's deep-sky targets. The articles feature star charts, stunning pictures, and constellation mythology. We've put together 11 digital packages. Each one contains four Celestial Portraits articles for you to purchase and download.
"Camelopardalis and Ursa Minor" is one of four articles included in Celestial Portraits Package 11.
This month we look at two constellations that are well placed year-round when viewed from mid-northern latitudes. One contains the Northern Hemisphere's "stationary" pole star. The other fills in the north polar sequence, a set of stars used to define magnitudes, between Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper.
Camelopardalis the Giraffe is a sizeable constellation containing no stars brighter than 4th magnitude. The most prominent pattern of this star-poor area strings together five stars in a long arc near the Perseus border. The Milky Way slices through the southwestern corner of the constellation, resulting in fields rich with clusters and nebulae. Only three stars have Bayer (Greek letter) designations, although there are another dozen brighter than magnitude 5. Alpha (α) Camelopardalis is a distant giant shining with the light of tens of thousands of suns, while Gamma (γ) Camelopardalis resides 300 light-years away, virtually in our neighborhood. To read the complete article, purchase and download Celestial Portraits Package 11. |
Deep-sky objects in Camelopardalis and Ursa Minor
Stock 23, Kemble's Cascade, NGC 1501, NGC 1502, IC 356, IC 342, Collinder 464, S Camelopardalis, NGC 2146, NGC 2336, NGC 2366, NGC 2403, NGC 2655, NGC 3172, IC 3568, UGC 9749, NGC 6217 |
Package 11 contains the following Celestial Portraits articles
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