Camelopardalis

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Camelopardalis

The constellation of Camelopardalis, the Giraffe, is one of circumpoles seen easily in the evening of February.

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Constellation Chart
The Giraffe
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".

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.
NGC2403 is a typical face-on galaxy, and looks like a shrinked M33, a famous and splendid galaxy in Triangulum.
It's estimated that NGC2403 is lying about 12 million light years away.

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.

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 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.

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 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: Small, round, and diffused galaxy in Camelopardalis.
Planetary Destinations In Camelopardalis

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.
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.

The Stars
While Camelopardalis sits between Cassiopeia and Ursa Major, the best way to begin studying it is to first find your bearings. With the eye locate Capella (alpha Aurigae). If you aren't sure which of the bright stars is Capella, start from the Big Dipper. Now instead of moving north to the Pole Star, move across the top part of the dipper (a line from delta Ursae Majoris drawn through alpha Ursae Majoris) and continue straight into the southern portion of the skies. As you approach the Milky Way, the very bright star you see is Capella.
Moving northwest from Capella you enter Perseus. Half way between Capella and Algenib (alpha Persei) and five degrees north of this last star, are the feet of the Giraffe. Roughly half way between Algenib and the North Pole is gamma Camelopardalis, the haunch of the giraffe.
Return to Capella; move west three degrees and north seven degrees. This is 7 Cam, a binary (Struve 610) which serves as the giraffe's front foot.
Now that we've got his backside and front foot sorted out, let's move from 7 Cam to the first bright star, about seven degrees north. This is beta Cam, also a binary (see below).
Beta Cam is the brightest star in Camelopardalis, at 4.03 visual magnitude, a yellow supergiant roughly a hundred times the size of the Sun, and about 1700 light years away.
Further north another six degrees and you encounter alpha Cam, which is nearly as bright at 4.3. This is a blue supergiant 4000 light years distant, with a diameter about half that of beta Cam.
Northwest of alpha Cam is gamma, with a visual magnitude of only 4.63. This star is only twice the size of our Sun, and is about 180 light years away.
These are the only Bayer stars in the constellation. But that's not to say there aren't other stars of great interest.
Double stars:
Camelopardalis boasts of several little known but very attractive double star systems.
Struve 485 is an outstanding binary surrounded by a host of glittering 10- and 11-magnitude stars which make up the open cluster NGC 1502. This is a wide and easy binary, and a lovely sight.
NGC 1502 is found half way between alpha and beta Cam, and about 55 arc minutes west. The brightest star in this group is the primary of Struve 485, found at the centre. The binary's vital statistics are AB: 6.1, 6.2; PA 304 degrees, at separation 18.1".
At virtually the same location is a second binary, Struve 484, which is much fainter: AB: 9.0, 9.5; PA 132, 5.3".
Struve 1051 is a striking triple system of similar stars. AB: 6.5, 7.7; PA 284 degrees, separation 1.1"; C: 7.8, PA 82 degrees and separation 31.5".
This very nice system is found in an otherwise desolate region: 7h, 26m, 35s; +73 degrees, 4', 58". It's well worth the detour.
Struve 1694 is a wide pair of nearly equal stars (5.0, 5.5; PA 326 degrees, separation 21.6")
Beta Camelopardalis features a pale yellow primary and a very wide, much fainter, companion: 4.0, 9.0; PA 208 degrees, separation 80".
Component B has a closer companion, named "b", an 11-magnitude star at 14.8" and PA 168 degrees.
Variable stars:
R Cam is a Mira-type variable with a period of 270.22 days, rising from 14.4 visual magnitude only to about 7, which makes it a telescopic variable all throughout its cycle.
VZ Cam is a semi-regular with an average period of 23.7 days, varying from 4.80 to 5. This is a popular semi-regular for binoculars.