Constellation Chart

The constellation of Camelopardalis, the Giraffe, is one of circumpoles seen easily in the evening of February. A long neck stretching out at the next to the Pole Star (Polaris), occupies a wide and sparce field between Auriga and Polaris. Indeed, the constellation includes stars fainter than the fifth magnitude except only two stars with the fourth mag. It may be impossible to trace the figure of charming animal in the northern winter skies. But a tail and a part of hind legs of giraffe are barely bathed in the faint Milky Way around Cassiopeia and Auriga. The constellation was originally established by Bartius in 17th century as a constellation of "Camel". But the name was mistranslated to "Giraffe" in the process of folklore, perhaps the cause of mistranlation may be that the Latin word of "Camel" resembles the English word of "Giraffe".

Galaxies In Caelum

NGC2403

NGC2403 is a galaxy 8 degrees north-west of omicron UMa that marks the nose of the Big Bear. The galaxy is positioned in a minor constellation of Cameropardalis (The Giraffe); so it's hardly be paid attention, but has sufficient size and visual magnitude worthy of being registered in Messier's catalogue. It has an extent of 22 arc minutes in east-west direction and 12 arc minutes in north-south, and has magnitude of about 9.

VDB14

This top image shows you very faint bluish reflection nebulae lying around the northern edge of autumn Milky Way between Cassiopeia and Perseus. The nebulae belong to a territory of Camelopardalis, and it can be said that they are almost not named. The northern part (the upper picture) reflecting a 4th magnitude star of B Cam has a minor catalogue number of vdB14, and an another southern part (the lower picture) is vdB15 surrounding C Cam with a magnitude of 5.

VDB15

Galaxy IC 2106 In the constellation of Caelum The galaxies Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 04 56 36.0 & Declination: -28 30 00.

NGC2366

An irregular galaxy positioned near the boundary on Ursa Major is NGC2366. The galaxy is lying about 3.6 degrees north of NGC2403, which is a striking spiral at the tip of the nose of Big Bear. NGC2366 has an apparent size of 8 arc minutes but very dimmed, it might be needed clear and dark sky to detect in your eyes through scopes. This picture shows you any striking structures but there is a bright stellar area in southern region.

IC342

IC342 is a very large but extraordinary dimmed galaxy at the edge of west of Camelopardlis. Although the galaxy has a visual diameter of 20 arc minutes, eyes can detect only small central nucleus. IC342 is positioned near the Milky Way, so many fine stars are distributed in surrounding area.

Kemble's Cascade

Actually it's not nebula nor star cluster, but a picturesque chain of unrelated stars visible with binoculars towards the constellation of Camelopardalis. This chain is positioned around the northern coast of Milky Way squeezed between Cassiopeia and Perseus, contains less than 20 stars nearly in a row stretching about 2.5 degrees in length. This asterism has been made popular by an astronomy enthusiast Lucian Kemble (1922-1999), star chain looks like a splash flowing from a small open cluster of NGC1502 at eastern tip of chain, this outward give a name of ?gKemble's Cascade?h. These stars appear as a string only from our direction in the Milky Way Galaxy. However it's a very beautiful and impressive asterism, I recommend you try to find in real night sky.

NGC 1569

NGC 1569 is a small dwarf irregular galaxy that underwent a burst of star forming activity that ended ~20Myr ago. This starburst event has formed 2 prominent Super-Star Clusters in the galaxy centre, and a number of other young star clusters, all of which contribute energy and mass to the galactic superwind.

NGC 2646

NGC 2646: Small, round, and diffused galaxy in Camelopardalis.

Planetary Destinations In Camelopardalis

HD 33564

Parent Star: HD 33564(F6 V) in the constellation of Camelopardalis is located at a distance of 20.98 (± 0.2) pc from our Solar system Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 05 22 33 & Declination: +79 13 52. The apparent Magnitude of the star is V = 5.08. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.00 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 0.00 AU. Orbiting around HD 33564 is planet HD 33564 b is believed to be a brown dwarf and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is a dark brown haze. The planet Orbits around the star every 388 (± 3) days and its mass is 9.1 MJ and was discovered by F. Galland1, 2, A.-M. Lagrange1, S. Udry2, A. Chelli1, F. Pepe2, J.-L. Beuzit1 and M. Mayor in 2005.

HD104985

Parent Star: HD 104985(G9 III) in the constellation of Camelopardalis is located at a distance of 332.68 Light Years from our Solar system Co-ordinates are Right Ascension: 12 05 15.1178 & Declination: +76 54 20.64. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 5.797. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 3.83 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 11.95 AU. Orbiting around HD 104985 is planet HD 104985 b is believed to be a Clarified Jovian and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is a Blue and cloudless. The planet is positioned out side of Habitability Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 0.78 AU and the planet Orbits around the star every 198.2 ± 0.3 Days and was discovered by SATO B., ANDO H., KAMBE E., TAKEDA Y., IZUMIURA H., MASUDA S., WATANABE E., NOGUCHI K., WADA S., OKADA N., KOYANO H., MAEHARA H., NORIMOTO Y., OKADA T., SHIMIZU Y., URAGUCHI F., YANAGISAWA K. & YOSHIDA M. in 2003.